No Paradoxes
by stephenopolos
Summary: When the SGC reaches the end of the rope, the only thing left to do is make more rope. Alternate Universe, non-canon characters.
1. Chapter 1

**Retcon file 1: The ark of relative truth.**

Due to the nature of the device it's been removed from this universe, the potential for abuse is too great, the device in canon could be reprogrammed to convey any information in a way that forces individuals to believe it as factual.

Therefore, here's a brief summary of what really happened. Daniel shoved the anti-ascended Ori weapon through the supergate destroying them. A year later a prior stepped through a milky way gate and all the crusader forces slowly withdrew back to their Galaxy.

Adria possessed by Baal was shot and killed, and the ascended finally stepped in and did something using Baal as their excuse, they prevented her ascension.

The galaxy was left in chaos, but an ori attack earlier resulted in a united earth. earth slowly starts spreading its domain to the local systems, meanwhile the rest of the galaxy remains in shambles.

Lucian, Jaffa, Tok'ra, Kelowna, and other races; all more focused on rebuilding their own holdings to help the numerous other worlds. So none of them even notice when the first wraith ship arrived.

Soon the galaxy was covered with wraith ships, each choosing a different approach to maximize their chances of success.

Earth finally noticed when one of their ships reports barely escaping an engagement, this leads to them gearing up to fight again.

unfortunately the supergate also opens signaling the renewed efforts of the priors to convert the galaxy, most likely in the belief that doing so would see the return of the ori ascended.

**Retcon file 2: Stargate transportation method.**

The Stargate does not rely on the dematerialization principle, as that would cause problems for people who stick body parts into the blue stuff for long periods of time to hold the gate open.

Instead it works on similar principles to Merlin's phasing device and stasis fields.

People entering the gate are wrapped in a stasis field, and moved out of phase. when the gate detects a complete package it sends them through the hyperspace tunnel the stasis field acting like a mag rail train car shuttling them along.

This means that larger items actually take slightly more power to send. though this is negligible compared to the amount of power required to open the initial connection.

**Chapter 1**

It was time to change the situation. General James Patchkirk looked out at his fleet. A fleet of just three ships, the culmination of all the tech acquired over the past decade through the Stargate program.

Mistakes had been made on all sides, sure the first enemy had been defeated, snake like parasites with delusions of godhood. They even held off the next enemy for a while, and with less advanced technology than the ancients had when they first encountered the Wraith. But quantity has a quality all its own, and eventually the great city has been withdrawn from the conflict to Earth.

For a time they even thought they had beat their third enemy in the Ori. But then reality sunk in, they'd toppled the Goa'uld leaving a power vacuum, then the arrival of the Ori removed most of the major powers that would have stabilized the situation. Then the first Wraith ship showed up, easily destroyed but it seemed like the Wraith had sent every hyperspace capable ship in Pegasus. There were too many ships, false positives from indigenous hyperdrives, that the cruisers and hives arriving from interstellar space where quickly lost.

By the time they got off their feet about the Wraith, the supergate activated unleashing ship after ship of vengeful warriors led by corrupt former priors. Earth held for a time the last stronghold, Atlantis's shield bolstered by the energy production capabilities of the entire planet.

Eventually the supply of drones in Antarctica where depleted.

By this point, James' fleet was the only one left and the risk at this point was considered justified. The battle group would try to jump back in time to a point when they could make things different.

It was a half baked plan, at best.

First up was the salvaged temporal drive from the Janus jumper. Enlarging the window to encompass all the Earth ships worked. For about thirty seconds before it sputtered and burned out leaving them only a year after the Wraith had arrived in the galaxy.

But that wasn't enough for General Patchkirk. He looked out the window and activated the comm. "This war has worn on us, but we are not defeated. We've managed to come this far, but not far enough. I firmly believe that if we aren't winning then we haven't tried hard enough. Others may call this a cheat. But for us this is survival against the odds. We've managed a short jump now let's try for the long one."

The general shut off the channel and turned back to his Navigation's officer, Maxwell Sheppard. "Punch it Max," he ordered.

The three ships drew closer together and with a few scans and number crunching opened a hyperspace window that went through a forming solar flare.


	2. Chapter 2

The three ships sent a subspace burst transmission towards earth warning them of the coming storm.

"Once more unto the breech, dear friends..." General Patchkirk muttered as the three ships jumped.

Sparks flew from a nearby console as the electrical systems overloaded. The lights dimming as the ship's computer core compensated and redirected energy from earth's homegrown version of the asgardian neutrino-ion generators, when those weren't enough the experimental subspace capacitors were brought on line to release their stored energy.

The waiting was the hardest part, they'd calculated as closely as they could leaving plenty of margin for error. Damn the consequences, they'd been backed into a corner, enemies on all sides and the ascended unable or refusing to intervene. Not that anyone could even contact them to begin with.

The general's mind went back to the inauguration of the ship. His personal inspection of the bridge before the key's had been metaphorically handed over.

"You're plea to name her the Enterprise was rejected," General Patchkirk half stated.

General O'Neill shook his head, "Apparently they still don't want to step on any intellectual property toes. Not that the name they picked is any better."

"Got a problem with the name?" Patchkirk said with a smirk.

"They named the damn thing after me!" O'Neill grumbled. "Least they could have done was wait until I was dead," he fell silent as they looked out the window to the two other ships in their berths.

The Jackson and the Carter named after two other members of the iconic SG-1. If they had the resources there would have been a fourth ship named the Teal'c. Carter had gone down with her ship in a battle against seven of the massive Ori ships. She'd succeeded in taking out five of them; but by that point her shields were non-existent and the remaining two managed a lucky shot, and Daniel was lost on a archeological dig offworld when the wraith showed up.

It seemed at times the infamous luck the team had for getting out of tight spots had finally caught up with them.

General Patchkirk jolted out of his musings as the lights dimmed again before the battle group dropped out of hyperspace. More alarms going off to alert them of potential overloads and stressed conduits. "Shut that off," he ordered, "And give me a report. I want to know when we are, and how bad the damage is."

Patchkirk grumbled about the how young the crew was. Earth gov had pushed for everyone with a confirmed ATA gene over the age of ten be given a chance to join. Quite a few of them where children of former SGC and Atlantis expedition members.

Finally the report was handed to him by a nearby cadet. They would need an hour to bring all three hyperdrives back online. Luckily this had been planned for and taken into account before they left. Spare parts had been provided for each of the three ships to rebuild their drives at least twice, and that was without using the asgard based energy-matter converter-which nobody wanted to call a replicator due to the technobugs by the same name. The viewscreen showed the sensor generated view of the galaxy hanging off to the left of the ship. Their exit point calculated to drop them in the intersteller void so they'd have time to get their feet under them.

The general looked at the report, using Carter's steller drift calculations the computer pinpointed the year with a reasonable degree of accuracy. He frowned, they'd been aiming for the the SGC's first mission. But he could work with this. Instead of a mere few decades jump back to 1990 they'd gone further... try fourteenth century.


	3. Chapter 3

"Still don't want to name it the Enterprise, sir?" Maxwell asked.

"You kidding me? With the luck vessels bearing that name have we'd never get our job done." James Patchkirk replied.

Patchkirk shook his head at the remembered comment. Of course, it was O'Neill's name painted on the side, so he might as well have named it Enterprise.

They were headed to Earth and should arrive in a few hours, they could have been there faster but he didn't want to stress the engines just yet. Not to mention they were also cloaking their hyperspace signature fairly heavily, a policy he'd decided on for any time they were approaching or leaving Earth space.

First stop would be to remove that damned long range communication device. Patchkirk glanced out the window and sipped his coffee, the taste wasn't quite right. He gave the food synthesizer a dirty look. He'd been assured the damn thing could recreate any food using the Asgard derived technology. Maybe he should send a team to pick up some real coffee as well.

A few hours later he hardly felt the ship transition smoothly from hyperspace, and resolved to commend the engineering team's work on the inertial dampeners.

"General Patchkirk?" the general looked up as the comm blinked.

"Go ahead," he tapped the button and called out in reply.

"We're in earth orbit," the navigation officer replied.

"See if Matt's team is ready," Patchkirk replied. "I'll be on the bridge shortly."

** No Paradoxes **

Matthew Beckett was a young Scottish man who had a slight resemblance to the late Dr. Carson Beckett. The resemblance wasn't coincidence as Carson had been his uncle. Matt was a perpetually smiling, cheerful person, who was on a fast track in the British military before being pulled when someone forwarded his file to the SGC for ATA gene testing.

He'd been handpicked for this mission due to his swordsmanship training and engineering skills.

"Grodin, Rivers, Reed, You're with me." Matt called out as he entered the barrack. "We've got a phone to destroy."

"Bridge," Matt jabbed the button on the intercom. "This is Beckett, team will be at the ring platform in fifteen."

Fifteen minutes later the group transported down to a dimly lit cavern.

Beckett quickly aimed his visor camera towards the hologram to capture the message for mission files. The team carefully approached the pedestal. Just like the old mission files, the sword remains firmly stuck. Beckett leads the team to the first puzzle room the puzzle is different though, carved into the wall in Alteran block script is the phrase: Ego sum principium mundi et finis saeculorum attamen nom sum deus. Next to the phrase is a patch of the wall that looks oddly like the Asgardian test in the Hall of Thor's might on Galaran.

Timothy Grodin pauses to read out the translation, "I am the beginning of the World and the end of the ages, but I am not god."

After a moment of staring at the riddle Rivers steps forward to draw the answer into the sand.

"Wait," Alex Reed yells out. "Let's make sure we all agree on the answer first."

Hadrian Rivers stops his finger an inch away from the sand, "It's stupidly simple."

"Well explain it to the rest of us then," Grodin mutters.

"The Alteran letter M," Rivers points to the words in the riddle, and then resumes his progress to draw the letter. A moment later the door slides open letting them back into the main chamber.

Beckett grins and grabs the sword, pulling it smoothly from the pedestal. He salutes the holographic knight and charges, completing textbook perfect parries and slashes. Grodin has his camera trained on the action the entire time. The knight doesn't last long against Beckett as he managed a fatal blow five minutes into the spar.

Beckett frowned and complained, "I was just getting warmed up." Sliding the sword back into the pedestal.

A moment later light flashes in the room filling it with gold urns, vases, statues, goblets, coins, jewels and other treasures.

Carefully they start loading the technology stuff onto the ring platform, being sure to keep the communication stones as far away from the base as possible. To give the crew time to move the stuff into storage they rotate which ship they send things to until the room is empty. Then Beckett grabs a permanent marker and carefully scrawls a message onto a piece of paper he brought along. "We knew the candlelight was fire, so we cooked this meal. ~ Sorry Vala, and Daniel, as annoying as she is, she's good for you."

** No Paradoxes **

Meanwhile back in orbit, General Patchkirk was sitting in the captains chair on the bridge. "Donavan, do we have a lock?"

"Yes sir," Nate Donavan said, tapping a few keys on the console.

"Beam him into space." Patchkirk said with a grim expression.

A moment later the leader of a certain cult appeared in a flash of light to the left of the ship.

"Beam up the tech and then start scanning for the next target," Patchkirk said, patting Donavan on the shoulder.


	4. Chapter 4

It took a bit of doing but eventually Lt. Donavan located the second target, a cache of goa'uld artifacts tucked away in a temple in northern Italy, the main identifier was the 10 pound chunk of weapons grade naquadah. Since he knew what he was looking for it didn't take long to finish tagging the items that didn't belong.

"Sir, I have the next group," Donavan said.

"Whenever you're ready." Patchkirk said with a nod.

Donavan nodded and clicked the last button to beam the goa'uld tech up into storage and the symbiote into space. "Secondary target has been spaced sir."

"Proceed to the third and fourth targets," the general said moving back to his seat.

A moment later Matt's team ringed back. "Bridge," Matt's voice called through the intercom.

"This is Patchkirk, proceed," the general replied.

"Mission accomplished. The phone is being taken apart by the core now sir." Col. Matt Beckett replied.

"Excellent, debriefing is in three hours, dismissed," Patchkirk replied.

It took a bit longer to find the third and fourth target, but not many things can hide for long from a determined sensor technician. Lt. Nathaniel Donavan pulled up the report on the sheldon expedition again and rescanned the desert. Matching up the map until the naquadah in the canopic jars pinged his sensors.

"We've got the king and queen," the lieutenant called out to the general.

"Good, proceed as planned," he replied.

A moment later and two canopic jars disappeared from a buried tomb, nobody noticed the flash of light, as there was nobody around to see it.

"Is our little orange glowstick down there too?" The general asked.

"Scanning for it now sir," Donavan replied.

A moment later Donavan called out, "Got it sir, the glowstick is there as is a slightly dented puddlejumper."

"Beam them up. Maxwell soon as we have the big glowstick and the other toys, reposition our orbit over Central America for the fifth target," General Patchkirk called out to Captain Maxwell Sheppard at the helm.

"We'll be in position in fifteen minutes sir," Maxwell said.

"Keep scanning for anything interesting, Nate," Patchkirk said, leaning back in his seat.

It took a while to get through the stone and vegetation but eventually the next target was located, Lt. Donavan hit the button and turned back towards General Patchkirk. "Sir, I have the fifth target."

"Whenever you're ready." Patchkirk said with a nod.

Lt. Donavan tapped the key and another flash of light deposited a female dressed in egyptian clothing next to the cult leader. A moment later the Sarcophagus she was in was beamed up into a cargo bay. No sense on destroying a sure method of bringing back the dead. Another scan and a deactivated cube joined the sarcophagus.

"Maxwell take us over Antarctica if you would," General Patchkirk called out. "This should be our last stop."

A few minutes later the where optimal range over what would one day be known as McMurdo bay.

The general hit the button for the intercom, "Allison."

"Infirmary, this is Dr. Allison Keller," the doctor replied.

"You have that quarantined stasis chamber prepped yet?" General Patchkirk replied.

Indistinct yelling was heard on the other end before Allison Keller came back on. "Give us ten minutes sir, the stasis pod is ready but the quarantine room is still being prepped."

"Understood, Patchkirk out." General Patchkirk replied.

"Donavan, find and beam up that gate, soon as you've done that locate our frozen ancient and notify Allison she'll let you know when she's ready for her." Patchkirk said getting up and heading for the door. "Maxwell, You have the bridge."

"Aye, sir," Max replied.


	5. Chapter 5

"Give me fleet-wide," General Patchkirk ordered, glancing over at his comm officer, Lieutenant Amanda Hariman.

At her nod the General looked back at the floor to ceiling view-screen showing the earth hanging over the ship. "Earth," he began, "the cradle of humanity." He paused staring out over the swirling white clouds. "We are about to embark on a journey that takes us away from the world we've called home. We do so in the hopes that our sacrifices will help to make a better future, just as our ancestors did time and again."

"This is the world we are fighting for, our home, and even though we may not know any of them now, our people." The general moved away from the view screen. "In a few short moments we'll be leaving this world. Our venture is one that will take time to succeed, time that we've bought with our actions here."

He sat down in the captain's chair and leaned forward, "Maxwell, take us out."

** Paradox; No such thing **

Edora: several hours later

The violet blue rip in space formed quickly, expelling the three vessels into the system. Scans immediately revealed the extent of the asteroid belt the single habitable planet swept through regularly.

The belt played host to the wreckage of thousands of parts of ships from what must have been a great battlefield. The shattered hulks scattered in a wide belt around the system's primary.

The ship graveyard showed signs of cleanup efforts from whatever race initially left it but the sheer with the sheer size of the belt, it seemed the most that had been done was removing the larger more intact pieces. The remaining debris ranged in size from the smaller rocks to irregularly shaped puddle jumper sized chunks of metallic alloy.

The quality and composition of the alloys making up the field was what gave the indication of an old battlefield.

Of course with all that refined metal just sitting there it was obvious what to do. The three ships made strafing runs through the field, white beams spreading from the forward section sweeping up anything in their path.

Every few moments a oblong casket sized object would materialize from behind the ship, spin on its axis and shoot away before disappearing into a hyperspace window.

** No Paradoxes! **

General Patchkirk took a sip of his coffee and sighed in satisfaction. "Gentlemen," he said after a moment of savoring the beverage. "Status report."

Brigadier General Amelia Heightmeyer leaned forward and picked up her tablet, "Moral is good, we've started sorting our section of the ancient artifacts recovered, and the scientists are carefully reviewing the documents before we even attempt to activate any of the artifacts. We've also been working on plans for future base building projects, I have a list of the most promising ideas which I've taken the liberty of forwarding to your inbox."

The Brigadier General nodded at Major General David Kowalski, who picked up where she left off. "While some of the younger crew are feeling homesick moral is mostly good."

"Like Amelia said, we're also sorting through our section of the reading material from the Glastonbury site. Quite a few of the items have been identified from the previous work such as the phase shifting device which is currently being studied." Kowalski paused to take a sip of water.

"We have our fair share of colony ideas as well, but we've been thinking more about how to take out enemies such as the Goa'uld and Wraith." Kowalski tapped a button and the schematic for the probes the three ships were building pulled up.

"This is the mark one galactic sensor probe, they're set to automatically place themselves at regular intervals in a three dimensional grid spiraling out from our current location. The idea is that the scan pulse from them will overwhelm anyone looking making it seem like the scan is coming from every direction at once. They also have a nice communications package included to help mitigate delays over long distances."

"On top of that we've been reviewing plans for the Wraith," Kowalski finished.

"Alright, keep me apprised of the progress on each of those goals," Patchkirk said after a moment. "I'd like you to be my war council, I need your honest opinions about what planet you feel would best suit our needs and what technology we should focus on pushing first. Dismissed."

The other two generals nodded in reply and closed the open channel. Patchkirk leaned back and took another sip of his coffee. Edora was currently their first choice, if not for the regular meteor shower every 150 years. The high probability of a rich asteroid belt was what had brought them to this system in the first place but with the reality of that asteroid belt confirmed Edora would be an even better option. The raw material alone would be worth it, but the possibility of finding some leftover technology would be even better.

He sighed and looked at the proposals on his desk for initiating contact with the Asgard. Some he outright rejected, while others he put in his reconsideration pile, but one caught his eye and he flagged it for his war council to review.


	6. Chapter 6

A week later and they'd reached their maximum deployment range for the mobile mk. 1 galactic sensor platform.

The probes reached out to cover just about a quadrant of the galaxy, and where already bringing in useful information about ship movements. Though it would take a while to match them up with known planetary locations from the database, and then tag each ship so they knew what ships belonged to which faction.

It had only taken a small fraction of the asteroid belt's resources, though being composed primarily of ship wreckage, the title didn't really fit. And they'd already managed to at least partially determine a few of the races involved.

There was evidence of the alloys used in the early Asgard ships which the database helpfully identified, as well as alloys of ancient and furling design also helpfully identified by the database. So far the only samples of technology the core had filtered out of the collector beams was a few pulse cannons, mostly intact but missing a few components in places.

With work they should be able to extrapolate the missing parts and complete a relatively powerful pulsed energy weapon.

The design for the next model of the sensor platform the Mk. 2 had been completed, they'd exchanged the hyperdrive for a smaller less powerful faster-than-light drive from the database that was noted as being similar to what had been used before the discovery of hyperdrive.

The new design was a little smaller than the puddlejumper, incorporated phase technology from the recovered merlin device, shields, anti-tampering countermeasures, and designed to use the gate to jump closer to it's final destination before using the less powerful drive to reach the final destination.

The crew on each ship had been over the design several times to double check for problems before the first one had been built and tested. While positioning would take a bit longer, the design was solid, and General Patchkirk gave the approval to proceed with seeding the remaining three quarters of the galaxy with the new probe.

** no paradoxes **

Dr. Allison Keller used the robotic manipulator to move the glowing cube closer to the stasis, keeping an eye on the MRI like sensor readings. The sensors were configured to give her as high of a resolution image of the person within the stasis chamber down to the molecular level.

Using beaming technology she was able to extract a few cells that did not show signs of the virus affecting the rest of the ancient. Which she had placed into storage for later examination and potential cloning using Asgard technology. If it turned out she was unable to cure her guest's original body she'd try cloning instead.

So far the cube showed promising results, but required the stasis field be relaxed from the complete lockdown on the passage of time within the field to allowing time to pass at a fractionally slow rate. However, as soon as the cube was pulled away the virus showed signs of returning to it's original position, granted she was gaining ground with each attempt but she wanted to be sure that the virus was beat and wouldn't return.

It didn't help that the scanner was having difficulty identifying viral cells as they exhibited strange sensor blocking traits, the more dormant the cell was the harder it was to detect.

The nature of the infection was frightening and infuriating. Frightening because it seemed to be clearly designed as a weapon, and infuriating, as any species capable of designing such a virus, well they where probably insane and beyond any diplomatic efforts.

Still though, she was making progress however slow. She'd just have to make sure that the cube didn't upset the delicate chemical balance in her patient's brain. That and get one of the engineers working on the phasing device in here to take a look at her readings.

** No Paradoxes **

Construction on the far side of the planet from the gate, had been started with a decent sized industrial complex, which went deep into the side of a mountain. The surface facilities boasted a shield complex that would be primarily be used to protect them during the every 150 year meteor shower when the planet passed through the derelict wreckage. It was less of a shield though, and more of a series of Asgard designed atomizing beams which would dissolve incoming meteors before they hit.

The architecture was a shift away from the usual Earth had become known for. There was markedly less of the military standard concrete and army green, as elements of Asgard, and Alteran, Lantean design had made their way into the construction. Partially due to the time the crew had spent on Atlantis before being assigned to the mission, but also due to the designs already available in the database which they'd modified for their use.

In the end though, they had an architectural style that was uniquely their own. An observant eye would still pick out small details here and there that would give away the inspiration for it. But the overall appearance did not give the impression of something hastily cobbled together from barely understood or stolen technology.

The final touch to the design was to make the whole thing on the same principle as Atlantis. To save power though, they opted for an enclosed design with large metal shields that would move into position before leaving the atmosphere, otherwise remaining open to allow the natural light and air into the city.


	7. Chapter 7

With the fifth week of their effort, the stardrive section of their city on Edora was mostly complete. Though they had yet to pick a name for the city-ship. The power reactors and stardrive had been installed. The design had been made with growth in mind rather than the meager population currently they had. One of the crew had commented on the early design that it looked almost like the saucer section from a star trek ship, only bigger. Which kicked off a competition among the designers for the internal design to see who could get as close to star trek as possible without being obvious.

In the end the final estimate was room for at least a million total, though if people doubled up they could probably go over two million.

And without all the room used up by the stardrive and the multiple redundant systems they'd added for safety, they probably could have fit five million.

General Patchkirk had finally stepped in on the discussion when the designers had abandoned the pretense and started aiming for things straight from star trek, ordering them to keep in mind while they were free to take good ideas from the show they should make it their own, and doing so make sure that it worked.

Vital systems where placed in the center, with everything moving out from there. They tried to keep from just doing decks throughout the whole ship instead opting to have a star shaped engineering section that held the star drive extending towards the points of a five pointed star. The bottom hull would gradually and gently slope towards the edge slightly until it reached the outer edge of the city where they'd opted to stack five superconducting coils for a supercollider which would enclose the circumference of the city, and give them an easy way to fire proton particle beams if needed.

From there on up the design changed as the gently sloped metal dome the monotony of the metal broken up by large transparent crystalline metal alloys provided by the Asgard database. Underneath the dome would be five triangular park like areas using the open area not used for engineering, and where the city could store an open water reservoir if needed.

On each pylon of the engineering deck, there would be towers rising towards the dome overhead, quite a few of them connecting to it in places both to support the dome and provide structural integrity.

The recovered pulse cannon technology once finished would be added in as many places on the outer hull as they could both above and below the city. Along with any other weapons they thought of.

One of the modifications made during their earlier contest had managed to tweak the Asgard designed particle beam weapons to the same orange color as federation phaser banks from the show.

The slowest part of the construction process was moving the resources. While they did have their mining operation on the planet; the process of removing the material from the ground was slower than bringing it from the derelict belt in orbit. So they were doing both.

** No Paradoxes **

General Patchkirk pushed the report aside and sipped at his coffee. He'd been rationing the supply but it was starting to get low. At least he remembered to have them bring a few of the plants along with them which they could grow in hothouses. Hopefully they be able to start their own supply of the bean soon.

The general finished the last few drops in the cup and locked his computer before entering the transport booth and heading to the infirmary.

A brief flash and the doors opened revealing the change in location. General Patchkirk stepped out of the booth walking towards his Chief Medical Officer deliberately making sure his movements were loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to distract.

Allison looked up from her work. "General, it's wonderful to see you," she said smiling in surprise. "Did you come early for your checkup for once?"

Patchkirk frowned, "Let's not be hasty Doctor Keller, I just let you poke and prod me a few weeks ago. I should still be good for a few months."

Allison's laugh was light and brightened the room. "No worries James, you're safe from my evil penlight for today."

Patchkirk mock shivered. "That thing is evil I tell ye' woman," he muttered before letting the expression fade. "No, I'm actually here to ask how our guest is doing."

Patchkirk nodded towards the stasis chamber, stuck behind a solid metal door within a vacuum sealed room.

Dr. Keller's expression soured.

"That bad huh?" James Patchkirk said with a raised eyebrow.

Allison tapped a few keys on her computer and pulled up the file. "The bloody bubonic plague would be easier to stamp out than this virus."

"The mechanism goes dormant in a vacuum and dies after a week in atmosphere, but if just one particle of the thing survives and manages to infect a mammal, that's all it takes to set the whole thing off again. It remains mostly dormant in non-human tissue. But in humans it causes massive organ failure as it disrupts the molecular structure," Dr. Keller explained.

"As we know from earlier ascensions, the ancients use less of their advanced physiology the closer they get to ascension, it's the only thing I can think of that's keeping her alive. Unfortunately for her, she seems stuck on the edge, if she steps back from the process of ascending she loses the necessary control over her body to fight the infection, but at the same time she can't stop fighting the infection long enough to ascend without the plague killing her first," Allison was pacing as she said this part.

"Also unfortunate for her, due to her being frozen, her memories are probably gone. But probably fortunate for us, if we can cure her she can back down from her attempt to ascend and help us instead," Dr. Keller finished.


	8. Chapter 8

"I thought the plague was similar to the one the Ori sent," General Patchkirk said softly.

"First thing we tried," Allison said leaning back in her chair.

"Unfortunately for us, while the plague showed some signs of similarity, and possibly was based off the one currently affecting our guest. That plague was specifically designed for non-advanced humanoid physiology, as was the vaccine," Doctor Keller said. "This one is different, based off the records in the database it specifically targeted the Alteran and those with genes that closely matched their template, meaning the ATA gene among other identifiers. So it's still dangerous to us."

"It also seems more advanced, the evasive qualities, and the adaptability to the medications we've attempted to this point," Doctor Keller shook her head.

Patchkirk opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted as his comm-badge chirped at him. He frowned at the device, yet another invention from some star trek happy engineer. He tapped the thing, "Patchkirk, what is it."

"Sir, project watchtower reports a possible sighting of the chariot, you asked to be notified," the voice of the relatively young Theodore Spencer replied.

"I'll be on the bridge shortly, Lieutenant," Patchkirk replied tapping the device again.

Turning back to Doctor Keller, he said, "I have the utmost faith you and you're team will figure something out. I also can't help but think that some of the research from our work on the earlier vaccine wouldn't be unhelpful."

Allison nodded, "I'll keep you posted sir."

"Sorry about cutting the conversation short Doctor, but duty calls," James Patchkirk smiled and left.

** No Paradoxes **

"Did someone say there was a chariot race going on?" Patchkirk asked as he entered the bridge.

"We have a confirmed sighting from watchtower and are currently tracking the vessel now sir," Theodore said from his post.

"Do we have the package ready Ted?" Patchkirk asked.

"We've selected the most complete footage and schematics from the database," Theodore said.

"Send it through then and make sure the synchronization doesn't fail, we don't know how the Asgard would react to finding one of our probes let alone us," the general ordered.

The package was a selection of video footage of conventional earth weaponry being used against the little techno-bugs followed by a series of kinetic energy weapons or slug throwers designed for Asgard use. It was followed by a set of coordinates leading to the derelict Asgard exploratory ship which from when they first started to use cloning technology, and when stasis was still in heavy use to cover distances between the stars.

There was some concern on their part that if the Asgard knew of them, either through discovering them later on, after providing them with more complete solutions, or by direct contact while they where still building, that the Asgard would object to the interference in the established time-line, or that they'd be unwilling to use the knowledge due to some prohibition into research on time manipulation related technology beyond time dilation.

So they'd decided to spoon feed hints to them using the most enigmatic methods of delivery.

General James Patchkirk nodded as he watched the icons on the screen updated by watchtower as it showed the Asgard ship come to a halt. A short time later it sped towards the coordinates given stopping long enough that he knew they got a good scan and then it left the range of the sensors and the galaxy at great speed.

The general smiled, "Good work Teddy, and keep an ear out for any replies," he said, heading to his ready room to make a note in the project files. "Col. Reed, you have the bridge."

** No Paradoxes **

Back in his ready room the general opened another project file and started reading the updates from the teams. After the success of integrating trek inspired technology, when the question of fielding more troops came up, fans of a different sort stepped forward and suggested the solution from another popular science fiction program; Star Wars. The suggestion was further split into two groups the first was working on what it would take to make a clone army, the second was working on the problem of droids, their shape, programming, and abilities.

Just as with the earlier trek happy group, the general provided these two new groups with the same admonishment and a reminder of his earlier words, "Remember before you even think of building a prototype for your droids or actually cloning someone. First this technology should not bear more than the slightest passing resemblance to the original source, and above all it must work for the purpose it is designed."

To the team working on the droid problem he told them, "I don't want to see another self replicating machine problem. You will impose strict intelligence bindings and restrict self replication and tool creation to nothing. Learn from the mistake the lanteans made with the asurans here, don't give them the capacity to learn and remember to restrict them from attacking us."

As for the cloners, he gave them an equally strong admonishment, "Don't rely on a the genetic material of a single individual alone as your source material, don't embed any 'commands' into their mental makeup. Do ensure that each clone holds the same values as us, do ensure that they see themselves as full citizens capable of choosing their path. And most of all make the process ours. I'd prefer you didn't actually clone anyone, so research all cloning tech across all science fiction before you continue."

Now, he was viewing the results of some of the research. The core had already helpfully marked which designs where plausible and which ones unworkable, it including a ranking scale with the most successful theoretical designs having a higher ranking. Anything below 50 he only gave a cursory glance at unless the design intrigued him in which case he tagged it with a note asking the team to review the design to see if they could make it viable.

When he got to the clone group he saw that some helpful engineer had attached the design for battle armor similar to the Kull armor only white in design, the core had marked it as viable since it had an example of an existing armor, but also resource intensive to produce.

The thing that made him tag it with a no go though, was the close resemblance to the storm trooper armor from the movies. In the notes he helpfully marked down. "Please re-read the evil overlords list. Particularly the rules about helmets. Also consider integrating a chameleon tech paint job that automatically adjusts for the environment, and finally please see if we can reduce the resource cost, and make the armor lighter," and sent the design back.

General Patchkirk sighed, He really needed to brief the team leaders on what got sent to him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Retcon file 3: The Age of the Asgard.**

It is assumed the Asgard evolved on Orilla in the galaxy Ida. which is their proclaimed homeworld.

The Asgard were a very young race when they joined the Alteran alliance.

Their friendship with the Alteran grew from a rocky start when the first Asgard sleeper ships showed up at the edge of Alteran exploration space.

For unexplained reasons the Alterans pursued the Asgard for alliance with great fervor.

Regardless of the lower tech level of the Asgard or their war like nature, the ancients wanted the alliance with them.

This may have had something to do with a set of files in the Atlantis database that are so heavily encrypted and locked that not even the lantean council new the contents.

The only thing exposing the encrypted file being a short meta tag, Asgard-Alteran sleeper ship, and the note: sealed by Iacobus Iatius Lantus pre-destiny.

Of course the vast majority of Asgard technological advancement didn't really start until 100,000 years ago when the first rudimentary clone technology was developed and implemented, the technology utilized some of the earliest Brain machine interface technology gifted by the Alterans to allow for the transfer of consciousness between bodies.

This was also right around the time when the last long range message between the two races was received, Atlantis reporting that they'd been settled and would start their new project seeding life throughout their new galaxy.

Thus, a race the Asgard had considered an honorable older brother for a long time disappeared from their sight.

Whether or not this was actually the last contact they had with each other is unknown.

The Asgard database doesn't give the usual error response when asked about other Alteran expeditions that left the milky way galaxy.

Regardless, most Asgard will tell you that 100,000 years ago is the start of when they truly stood on their own as one of the great races.

**Chapter 9**

Over the next four weeks, watchtower detected Asgard ships repositioning throughout the galaxy; the majority of them moving towards the derelict ancestral Asgard vessel at the coordinates given.

They weren't the only ones that were busy. On Edora, the first superconducting track for the supercollider had been laid around the outer edge of their own cityship project, which they hadn't yet named, the inside of the city was also starting to take shape the central control tower was up with the surrounding residential towers. The work crew rotated with the ships for a fresh group every six hours.

General Patchkirk finally got through to the team leaders after two weeks of meetings with them just what their job was, so now his work load had lightened up a bit since they were only asking him to review half the number of projects than before. Of course he still had access to their team's work if he wanted to peruse and add notes. But now they were catching the designs that would be too similar or nonviable before they got sent to him.

Right around that time he was also pulled into a meeting with Doctor Keller, as her team had repeatedly suggested that a Tok'ra symbiont might be able to help where their technology was failing.

"I can't authorize it," General Patchkirk said. "It would be a violation of her personal rights, I can't authorize the risk of giving a potentially hostile symbiont access to her mind on the off chance that she does remember something and it's dangerous technology."

"I agree with you," Allison said with a sigh. "The idea didn't sit right with me either but this way I can shut them down as it comes from both of us. They're going to ask though, can we research how the symbiotes boost the host immune system and their other marvelous healing properties?"

Patchkirk grumbled for a moment. "If you can do so without anyone becoming a host and ensure the safety of those involved. I suppose I can support it. At the moment though, I can't however authorize a mission to retrieve Egeria from her prison. That planet is still under hostile control, and even with a guaranteed benevolent symbiote, I still couldn't authorize using one on our guest, not without her permission. For all we know her advanced immune system could start rejecting the thing further weakening her."

"Good enough," Doctor Keller replied with a grim smile.

** no paradoxes **

"Ye've got to put more swing into it," Colonel Matt Beckett said from his seat at the edge of the gym where they were watching a match with practice swords.

"Think you can do better, Scottie?" Alexander Reed asked picking himself up off the floor.

"Ach, I know I can do better, Reed!" Matt replied with a smirk.

Reed held out the practice sword and waited for the colonel to finish getting up.

Accepting the practice sword he experimentally swung it around a few times getting used to the weight. "Not quite balanced but it'll do," he said nonchalantly.

Major Zachary Mitchell grinned, "So you're the one they sent to beat the lights out of dad's holo-knight."

"Wasn't that hard," Matt said parrying Zack's attack. "Knight must've been set on easy mode."

Zack shrugged, he'd gotten into sword fighting based on his dad's stories about fighting that knight. "Well, considering dad beat it without training," Zack blocked a strike from the left with a grunt. "It probably was."

The banter fell away for a while as the two tested each other's defenses. "You're not half bad," Matt said after a while.

"Thanks," Zack said as he managed a quick slash that caught a piece of Matt's shirt. "You're pretty decent yourself."

Matt's return slash caught the pocket on Zachery's cargo pants.

** No Paradoxes **

Up a few levels another discussion was going on.

Radomil Zalenka pushed up his glasses gesturing animatedly. "We should go get Atlantis."

At the questioning glances he started explaining himself. "Listen, aside from the possibility of Weir being there, and we can use the sarcophagus to help reverse some of the aging she's undergone. There is that energy being trap. If we can study the trap we should be able to determine a way to confine Anubis until we can figure out how to take care of him. Since he's not completely ascended it might be possible to trap him in the device and maybe later toss him into a black hole."

Madison Miller leaned forward, "I'll admit the idea has a certain appeal, and potential."

Radomil pushed his glasses up again, "I could kiss you."

"Please don't," Madison replied dryly.

"Fine, I'll forward the idea up to the team lead," Rodney McKay II replied, while not quite as annoying as his father his ego was still rather large. "Can we get back to what we were assigned to work on?"

Radomil crossed his arms, "If you insist."

Madison just shook her head, "Right, what if we use an empty ZPM and shunt the exotic particles into its containment field?"

** No Paradoxes **

General Patchkirk looked over the latest fleet designs and shook his head. There was no way in hell he was green lighting production on a fleet of Millenium falcons, Imperial star destroyers, or a death star. Some of the smaller fighters though, if they could just change the design enough and update it with the new technology.

He set to work writing out the denials mostly just copying and pasting since it was pretty much the same reason.

After a few minutes he stopped and just sent out a general email:

To: all teams working on ship designs.

From: General Patchkirk

Subject: Design viability

Please note: No design with an exposed command center will be approved. Any design with an exposed bridge, will automatically be returned.

Ship control systems, design teams please note, this is a request that you work on developing fuses and breakers; it's stupid for us not to have this relatively simple measure to protect against power surges that most appliances and every home in America had before we left.

Also emergency control systems. Please compartmentalize all designs with automatic bulkhead doors, reinforced by forcefields. It would not do for a single breech to see decompression of the entire ship.

Redundancy, if at all possible add more power generators and shield emitters. Use separate power grids for weapons and shields with the ability to change which grid a generator is supplying.

And finally, weapons, I'd like to see us field at least three different weapon system types on a design. Plan accordingly.

**Omake: Unexpected delivery.**

Patchkirk smirked as he stared at the view screen showing the watery planet hanging there in space. The three ships they'd arrived with were docked in the new earth designed cityship. Their storage hold stocked full of millions of drones. The derelict lantean sleeper ship was sitting comfortably in one of their berths being repaired, the next berth over held the other lantean ship that was abandoned due to radiation damage.

They'd arrived at Atlantis to find it on the last bit of power; shield partially collapsed leaving two piers open to the ocean.

No Doctor Weir on ice. And in the jumper bay was a really nice present. A fully fueled time jumper just waiting for them.

Yes, this would be a wonderful surprise for someone.

Beaming directly into the ZPM room they replaced the depleted batteries with fresh ones they'd picked up along the way, and released the clamps holding it down.

Slowly they stripped the city of all technology until the only thing left was the superstructure an the stabilizing mechanism which eventually that to disappeared. The Alteran database was hooked up next to the cities copy of the Asgard database, the new shield modules where installed along side their existing shield emitters, the contents of the city carefully loaded up into several cargo bays, though the nanite lab with the anti-human weapon was meticulously destroyed. The three new ZPM's and the ones they brought with them to power the city were connected into their power grid.

Patchkirk exited the small office next to the control room. "Maxwell, is everything ready?"

Maxwell looked up from his console and grinned, "Everything is green, sir. The engineering team reports that the temporal drive is setup and shouldn't burn out on us this time sir."

"Excellent," Patchkirk replied, moving to stand at the main command console. "Raise shields."

"Shields raised and operating at maximum efficiency," the shield technician called out as the significantly stronger shield rippled into existence above their outer hull.

"Maxwell," Patchkirk said looking positively giddy. "Engage!"

With a flash of light they disappeared.

** No Paradoxes **

"Sensors are picking up new contacts," Donovan called out.

Patchkirk's grin was positively predatory. "On screen."

The display screen wavered to show the view outside the ship and a very large wraith armada.

"Fire at will," Patchkirk ordered.

Every weapon on the ship activated at once pouring massive amounts of energy and ordinance out at the armada.

Wraith darts attempted strafing runs on the ship only for their pulse cannons to cover the sky with orange plasma destroying every last one. The closest wraith hive was bisected in half with an modified orange Asgard plasma beam the beam continued through straight through the hive taking out another three cruisers.

With so many enemy ships, they didn't need to aim. Every shot hit.

With all the darts gone, Patchkirk ordered the next wave of fire. "Major Novak, unleash the drones."

Novak tapped the button on her console. "Chair room has been informed sir, drones are go."

Five hatches irised open on the outer hull and soon the sky was covered with orange squid shaped missiles.

The next wave of hives and cruisers arrived and Patchkirk looked over at Maxwell. "Did they not get the memo, Max?"

Maxwell snorted, "I don't believe so, sir. Should I serve them the notice?"

"If you would, Max," Patchkirk replied, ignoring the beeping from the comm center.

Max rotated the ship slightly and called out, "Position ready for the lance, sir. Shall we ask them if they want to joust."

"Novak," Patchkirk said. "Activate the lance."

Free hydrogen plasma was released into the superconductive coils at the edge of the ship. Electrons and protons move away from each with the magnetic flow until they shot out they recombined in the launch tube out the edge shooting out in an almost invisible ray. The force of the lazed plasma hitting the edge of the hive ripping right through the hull, charged particles spinning off towards the other hives causing splash damage.

The ray of destruction went straight through the hive and into the next. Maxwell rotating their ship to sweep the lance across the field of destruction.

Finally Patchkirk looked over at the comm officer who'd been patiently waiting for them to notice the blinking light on her screen.

"Yes, Lt. Hariman?" Patchkirk asked with a smirk.

"Atlantis is calling, they seem pretty insistent to know who we are and where we came from," Lieutenant Amanda Hariman replied. "I'm censoring a bit, since I'm pretty sure a lot of the words they said were swear words when they saw the amount of force we brought to bear against the enemy."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

They were approaching their second year, the city-ship was mostly completed the only thing left to do was to install the sections of the upper dome to complete the outer hull. The install would be completed with the three ships settling into their berths and beaming the final hull sections into place using their constructors.

While docked with the city, power and computer resources could be networked together, increasing the overall resources available to the city.

General Patchkirk looked out at the city from his office in the central spire. The place would soon be full of life; the clone team had finally submitted their proposal.

In the end, it wasn't so much a cloning project as it was speeding up the natural process. Their final design would accept genetic material from two or more individuals, randomly combine them to make a complete genetic template and then fast grow the results to age seven. At which point a selection of memories would be uploaded using a further modified copy of Loki's version of the Asgard cloning technology to give the new individual the basics.

The process would also ensure the inclusion of the ATA gene. The project had been delayed by several months of debate over legal and moral implications until a series of rules had been laid out.

The initial memory upload would be as balanced as they could make it. Each child created would not be pushed into a specific job role and would be allowed to find the area that best suited them.

The resulting individuals would be considered full citizens ten years after their date of creation, with their donors being their legal guardians until that time.

They could not be ordered to participate in military engagements until their age of majority the aforementioned date ten years after their creation, which being aged to seven would make them physically seventeen. At which point they had the option of signing up for military service; except in direct defense of their home which in this instance would be the city.

James Patchkirk closed the file, adding his final notes and giving the project approval.

The next project folder he opened was from the droid team. Studies the team had done showed the more human in appearance the less comfortable everyone was with the droid. So the team had gone the other direction with several designs.

The first design was a replacement for the MALP platform, which actually drew inspiration from an existing Alteran technology. The probe was a sphere fitted with antigrav, gyroscope, cameras, atmospheric monitors and a phase cloak all bundled around a tiny power crystal designed to last years without replacement. Their version was slightly larger than the Destiny version but the stealth properties were believed to make up for the difference, and a second smaller version containing only the bare minimum that was much closer to the size of the original was also made.

There was a second discovery made by the team working on the new mobile reconnaissance platform, which they named the Kino in honor of the original. In using the sensors on an active gate connection, they discovered an additional carrier wave in use in a higher band that they could only detect using the sensors based off of Alteran and Asgard designs.

Embedded within the signal, there was data about the immediate conditions on the other side of the gate, including an image from the top chevron of the gate facing the dialing pedestal.

The next file consisted of three mule designs for moving cargo and equipment quickly. The first one was the standard wheeled model, designed to be lightweight and able to carry several thousand pounds. After that, there was a hybrid model that made use of antigrav engines to supplement the carrying capacity while still retaining the wheels. And the last Mule design was strictly antigrav with a gyroscope to maintain stability.

The last file was a series of repair droids. Designed for work in low gravity and areas exposed to space, this design was equipped with constructor beams and the most basic computer system, all functions slaved to the main computer of the vessel it would be deployed on. It could also be controlled via the same style tablet as the Kino model.

There were several hundred other designs saved in the folder but these where the main ones his team leads had approved based on the requirements he gave them.

The final touch to protect everything in the event of an Asgard ship swinging by while overrun with replicators was to fit everything with an anti-replicator field that could be activated along with the shield.


	11. Chapter 11

"How'd the battle simulation go?" Col. Ally Martin asked Max as he entered the room.

"Completely unrealistic," Max snorted.

"Oh?" Ally raised an eyebrow.

"Max, there's no such thing as overkill," Nate Donovan said as he dropped into a seat next to Ally putting his arm around her.

"With an enemy like the wraith at the height of the Atlantian war, I agree," Max replied. "However the assumptions made at the beginning of the simulation."

Max shook his head, "millions of Atlantian drones, not likely, nor would be disassembling Atlantis in a mere month; and I still don't know what the General planned on telling Atlantis at the end of the fight."

Nate smirked, "he probably ended the simulation at that point for just that reason."

Just then, Madison Miller walked in with Radomil.

"Maddy, Radomil," Max called out, "over here."

The two looked in their direction exchanged a glance, Madison said something to Radomil who shrugged and followed her over to the table.

"Hey Sheppard," Madison said with a smile, "Not causing trouble I hope."

"You know me, Maddy," Sheppard started with a disarming grin.

"Exactly, I do know you Max," Madison interrupted with her own predatory grin. "You grew up next door to me; Trouble is in your genetics. And your father's genes and now that I think about it trouble is probably also in the genes of everyone else on your dad's side of your family."

Sheppard gave her a wounded look, while the rest of the group laughed.

"So, Maddy how's the engineering side of things?" Ally asked.

"Same old," Madison said, and nudged Radomil who confusedly looked up from his pudding he'd pulled from somewhere, probably the food replicator in the center of the table.

"Huh," Radomil grunted, before realizing what she wanted, "Oh! Yes, well, your simulation the other day exposed a few areas we needed to work on but otherwise all good."

Beckett showed up from somewhere making everyone jump when he asked his question. "Did they say anything about sending out spec ops teams to do quick strikes against Goa'uld targets?"

Max shook his head, "General Patchkirk was going over the proposal the other day but hasn't said anything to us."

"Damn," Beckett cursed, "I need some action; it's damned boring around here."

Maxwell shook his head.

"You realize what you've done Matt?" Nate said with a look of horror.

Matthew Beckett looked around the table confused.

"You've cursed us, you said the dreaded words around him," Nate Donovan pointed at Sheppard.

Madison nodded sagely, "yes, you've invoked the Sheppard genetics, we must prepare for the worst."

"Not this again," Beckett said palming his face. "I tell ya, the wraith showing up and forcing us to do this little trip is not my fault."

Radomil looked around the group, his spoon sticking out of his mouth. Slowly he withdrew the spoon and swallowed. Carefully placing his cup on the outlined section of the table and hitting the disposal button to recycle the material. "You all are crazy," he said.


	12. Chapter 12

Major Kate Novak poked her head through the open door to the General's ready room, and called out, "Sir?"

"Yes, Major?" General Patchkirk said, setting down his tablet on the desk.

Novak nervously entered the room and handed over the table she was carrying.

"What's this?" General Patchkirk asked.

"Nate and I ran some projections last night on Edora's orbit to calculate the next few years' worth of meteor showers," Kate replied, thankful she hadn't inherited her Aunt's hiccups.

"And," Patchkirk prompted.

"Well, this next 'fire rain' takes us directly through a particularly dense portion of the belt," Novak said, pointing to the projected path through a heavily packed portion of the debris field.

Even with all three of their ships making strafing runs ahead of the planet's path; there would still be a huge amount of space to cover and planet's gravity would pull more of the debris into the cleared area.

"Shouldn't the Asgard beams be able to intercept any asteroids them before they hit the city?" the General asked.

"Yes, of course," Novak replied, "And normally that would be fine. But we dragged Radomil's team in to help with the calculations, the beams will be able to stop the big stuff from hitting the city and most of the small stuff, but it won't be able to stop anything farther away."

"And a big enough hit could throw up a dust cloud and drop the planet into a temporary ice age." The general nodded in understanding. "How long do we have until the planet hits the debris field?" General Patchkirk asked.

"Two months, based off the old mission records the planet hits the belt on the same day every year usually just clipping the edge," Novak replied.

General Patchkirk sighed and handed the tablet back to her, "Forward a copy of your report to Generals Heightmeyer and Kowalski. We'll notify everyone tonight."

** No Paradoxes **

Sheppard leaned back, hands behind his head, as he watched the others argue over the news.

"I told you," Madison crowed at Beckett. "You invoked Sheppard's genetics. Never taunt the Sheppard genetics."

Beckett sat there arms crossed, "What's this got to do with me? I'm the one who was bored not Sheppard."

"Yes, and most likely the meteor shower will mean that Sheppard has to do some crazy aerial stunt in one of the small fighters to save us all." Nate replied.

Madison showing her agreement with by nodding her head with each word, "and Sheppard's genes are predisposed to make a situation that makes use of his proven genetic ability to fly just as insane as his father."

Beckett buried his face in his palms.

Maxwell Sheppard just sat there quietly amused at the conversation, having learned long ago not to try and defend his supposed genetic predisposition to be in the middle of a situation. Maxwell interrupted the conversation with a sudden thought, "I have to wonder, did we ever check to see if there's a native settlement near the gate on this planet?"

** No Paradoxes **

Matthew Becket stepped out of the transport near the Edoran gate.

Maybe there was something to his friend's theory on Max's Sheppard genes, he mused idly. He'd been bored, and then Max goes and mentions that we haven't been good neighbors and said hello to the Edorans yet.

The Edoran settlement was a decent walk away from the gate, but eventually Matt reached them. Being knocked down every 150 years must take a toll on a people. The Edorans have just managed to get themselves set back up and here another fire rain comes to knock them back down again, he thought.

"Hello," Matt called out on the edge of the village.

One of the children playing a short distance away looks up and then runs into a nearby house. A few moments later and Matt is being welcomed by the locals.

"I am Ethan," a tall man with brown hair, green eyes, and a strong jaw told Matt as he stepped forward.

"Matthew," Beckett replied accepting the offered greeting.

"Where are you from," Ethan asked.

"Another world, my people are capable moving between the void from star to star," Matt replied. "Someday in a few generations, the standing ring at the edge of your lands will be able to open a doorway between our worlds."

"We know of the ring of sorrow," Ethan said.

"My people call it a stargate," Beckett said.

"My grandfather told me of the story, our people were brought here through the ring long ago, and then abandoned when the fire rain chased away our captors." Ethan told him. "My wife calls the fire rain the tears of our ancestors. Saddened and angry at what became of us."

Beckett nodded, "We know of them, both the fire rain and those who held you're ancestors captive, my people have fought them before and will fight them again."

The first few conversations with the Edorans went well enough, Beckett was a hit with the kids from his Scottish accent. Later he'd complain that Sheppard stole his thunder by introducing them to candy and chocolate.

But for the most part first contact was a success.


	13. Chapter 13

Technically, once the generators had been installed to power the stardrive, she'd been flight capable. However, that only meant her stardrive was capable of lifting the unfinished city ship into orbit. Not that the city was complete, or even space worthy.

But they had two months to make it so. The three earth ships rotated between the debris field and the planet using the Asgard construction beams to dissolve the largest chunks of material in the planet's path and ferry it down to the city for reuse. Both helping to solve the impending problem, and finish the city's outer hull.

Not all of the material was immediately useful though, the metal alloys used in the construction of the long abandoned craft didn't use the same mix of metal they needed so it had to be reformed with the proper mix, leaving large stockpiles of base metal. The hull would be a trinium-carbon-naquada alloy with a few other stabilizing ingredients added in smaller amounts for effect.

In between their visiting the Edoran's, holding conversations, and trading knowledge and goods with them. The Edoran people where quickly becoming friends with the expedition. Hopefully good enough friends that when the fire rain started, they'd be able to convince them to enter the relative safety of their ships.

For the city however, they were working as quickly as possible to get it ready for the main event. They still had a few open spaces in the outer hull that needed to be completed.

One uneventful trip to Proclarush Taonas about two weeks in, had netted them a complete Alteran Chair platform and the accompanying Zero point module, shield-emitter and computer, for installation into the central tower. They left a small beacon in orbit set to start transmitting a slightly cryptic message over radio, that the antarctic outpost would have the power it needed, if it detected an earth ship or tel'tac.

Sadly there weren't any drones at the outpost, the computer records showing they'd been transferred to earth before the outpost had been abandoned. But the shield emitter was a big boon, though a bit worn from holding back molten lava for at least ten thousand years. The Emitter was still in good working condition and would provide a good example of how to design their own shield emitters.

By the fifth week, they were cutting it real close. Most of the internal systems were completed, however the massive outer hull wasn't complete yet and they didn't want to trust the inside atmosphere to a shield that would be fending off thousands of asteroid impacts. So, without the hull complete they wouldn't be taking off.

** No Paradoxes **

The three earth ships gracefully rose from their docking points around the city and quickly increased their altitude until they were out of the planet's atmosphere.

General Patchkirk had ordered 2IC back to the planet to command the city ship's defenses.

The plan was to go ahead of the planet, taking care of the largest pieces in their path working their way through. Each pass through the belt they'd go for the next largest remaining, they'd do this until the planet entered the edge of the debris field and then they'd be focusing on just the asteroids that would hit the atmosphere at an angle that wouldn't bounce off.

The planet's magnetic field was already affecting the distribution of mass within the field. pulling the majority of the debris towards the poles, the sheer amount of material in the field though insured that a good amount pierced that protective barrier to head towards the equatorial line of the planet.

Planet side, the last of the Edorans had finished packing up, a little under half choosing the shelter of the nearby caves while the rest of them went to the cityship. They were wary of being burned but appreciated the advanced warning that they'd gotten.

With the Edorans introduction to the city, someone had forwarded an idea up to make the official name of the city Aldores, with a slight difference in spelling to prevent confusion, in honor of the planet she'd been built on and the people who called it home.

The matter was put to a vote with the majority and quickly agreed upon, with General Patchkirk signing off on the new name.

A system had been worked out for the ships to offload the material gathered from the asteroid belt without having to dock with the city-ship. Once their storage was full the ship would turn back towards the planet and beam everything down to a designated platform outside the city, before turning and heading back out into the field.

On the ground the city would beam the material into a cargo bay for processing, separating out the useful material and sending the rest to another storage area. Anything that looked relatively intact technology-wise was sent to another cargo bay to be picked through.

** No Paradoxes **

Three hours into the edge of the debris belt, a decent chunk of material impacted the atmosphere and fragmented into several shards, the difference in internal temperature when it split pushing each chunk altering the path of each piece away from the main fragment.

Several pieces were in range of the city's beams and were picked out of the sky, leaving only a few harder to track smaller pieces to impact impotently on their shield.

The other two pieces spun off and bit into the ground about a mile south, south-east of them.

The Edorans were suitably impressed by the beams plucking the meteors out of the sky.

It took another three hours and a few close calls before they finally finished manufacturing the last hull plate, the last few pieces of the outer hull were beamed into place and inspected for a proper seal before they started the city's star drive.

The inertial dampeners based off of Asgard designs proved up to the task by soaking up the vibration generated from the city's massive engines.

A journal entry by one of the construction workers would later equate the design with that of a tortoise shell without the arms and legs.

Slowly Aldores rose from the ground shaking only slightly as a chunk of meteor that got past the far reaching Asgard beams and hit the shield.

When they cleared a thousand feet the star drive increased it's output, rocketing the ship upwards until they exited the atmosphere.

Hanging above the planet the three earth ships formed up with the city aiming and resumed their work beaming debris around, the city ship adding their pulse cannons to the mix for the smaller stuff.

It took a full 48 hours to clear the outer edge of the field the crew on each ship and the city were exhausted at that point. There were visible fires across the planet where rising plums of smoke identified smaller chunks of asteroid that had made it past them.

**Omake**

"What's this about, sir? Did the Air Force finally approve my suggestions for the X-22?" Asked Ret. Col O'Neill, part-time astronomer. Also, this is Two L's, the other guy is neither a part-time astronomer nor a part-time comic.

Ignoring the reference to Jack's (small, tiny) participation in the development of the X-22 as an initial test pilot, which ended when he'd accidentally submitted a joking request to paint the third prototype to look like it belonged in star wars as an Imperial Fighter... General West pulled out a file with various full-page printouts of photographs, ones O'Neill recognized, since someone had mailed copies to him before.

"At first I thought this was a joke, but then I got word..." West sighed. "Would you like to explain yourself?"

Jack hummed to himself at the longish note visible in the photo,

_On Pluto You'll find a ring-shaped device, that I like to call the great orifice, that will take you to the greater beyond... by that I mean space. It used to be on earth because Aliens, but I moved it because reasons. Also, Aliens. Hostile Aliens, though there are some nice ones... Hint: Thor and his people. Anyway good luck developing space travel decent enough to get you to the stargate. Which by the way, uses six symbols (which are, quite conveniently, star constellations as viewed from earth) to dial out with a seventh symbol to mark a departure point..._

_Anyway keep this short... _

_Be good, don't nuke each other, and the Simpsons are awesome._

_\- President O'Neill, who tried to retire from office (as well as from General'ing) like a gazillion times but apparantly, I'm too good to be allowed to. _

_\- P.S. The F-22 was an absolute hit once we introduced the new color-scheme. _

_\- PPS if it's not obvious, I time Travelled. Tata._


	14. Chapter 14

A few weeks after passing through the debris belt, Aldores had moved back to the planet's surface landing somewhat awkwardly in a small ocean off the coast of the Edoran settlement.

The Edoran gate had been effectively buried with their permission in a manner that would allow the Edorans to unbury it if they had need of it for any reason. So that the Aldoren gate room could take precedence and allow the earth teams to run opperations through their gate without risking a priority conflict between gates.

One precaution that had been put in place was to place the gate in orbit inside a small remote controlled station with an airlock door on one end. It was basically a metal box with a small computer and engines attached to hold it steady.

Dialing was done remotely via the city-ship or one of the other earth vessels, once a connection was established the team would beam up and proceed through. This way they didn't have to rely on an iris to prevent invasion, which would also squash potential friendlies.

Not that they didn't have an iris installed anyway. A reasonably quick override from the control center in the city would see the airlock open to space any invading force. And if the gate were under attack by something similar to the particle beam weapon Anubis used the station had an engine capable of a very short two-way FTL jump far enough away to change the gate address and force the gate to disconnect.

With all these precautions finalized, they where ready to start sending teams to scout the area.

** No Paradoxes **

Matthew Beckett was leaning back in his seat in the break room with the rest of his team waiting for the signal for the mission start.

"Did the general finally decide what our teams where called?" Timothy Grodin asked.

They already knew they were going to avoid the SG-number designation system to avoid stepping on Earth's toes in the future. Though Matt was all for it as a long term prank on Earth. He figured it would be funny if they stepped through calling themselves SG-1 and nobody believed them. More boring minds prevailed though and so their designation hadn't been finalized just yet.

"I suppose we'll find out when they call us up for the mission," Matt replied, as he double checked the shield generator which the core had given them after showing it an example of a goa'uld karakesh and an Atlantean designed personal shield.

They'd asked for a few more features than the original design. It was an integrated field package, designed to replace the majority of their gear, which they were still bringing along as backup.

Aside from the shields, it also projected a heads up display into the user's visual cortex skipping the need for holographic emitters. The HUD would give a sensor reading of their surroundings providing building layouts and life signs. There was also a halfway decent targeting reticle to help aim just about any weapon.

Next to that was an integrated communications package which made use of a variety of different transmission methods to ensure a team would always be able to stay in contact as long as the device was on them. It bypassed the ears the same way the HUD did going straight to the auditory center of the brain.

The last addition was a personal environmental control shield, which shielded from chemical, biological, radiological, and would regulate the temperature around them to a comfortable setting between sixty and eighty degrees set at the user's discretion. Theoretically this shield could also hold and maintain atmosphere around them in a vacuum.

With the shield on and blocking shots from a Jaffa staff weapon they had about four hours of power, for normal operation they could go four days without charging. Low power mode would last two weeks, and that shut everything except the comm package and HUD down.

The whole package weighed about 15 lbs and fit into a relatively thin flexible vest that went under their tactical vest.

"Grodin, as long as they don't try to call us Milky-Way Recon 1 or variations on that general theme, I'm fine," Matt said, still a miffed they hadn't let him pull the prank of using the established SG team pattern.

"They'll probably keep it simple," Sheppard said sitting down with his team across from Matt's team at the table.

"So, P3X-989," Matt said gesturing at him and his team. "You?"

"7763," Sheppard replied.

"Really?" Matt's eyebrow rose, "I didn't think we'd be contacting them so soon."

"Someone said they might be more... open to an overture from us if we appear more advanced." Sheppard replied.

"Given the mission reports I don't imagine they'd be much help," Hadrian Rivers spoke up.

"You're one to talk," Zach Mitchel who was on Max's team replied. "How's robo guy going to be of any use."

Alexander Reed spoke up, "They both offer different perspectives, and as annoying as Harlan is if we can free him from the planet and bring his technology..." he trailed off as their comm crackled.

"Aldores Team 1, mission is ready." Donovan's voice came through.

Matt's team stood up and stepped away from the table. Matt tapped a button on an arm control and replied, "Aldores team 1 ready for beam out."

Sheppard chortled as the team disappeared in a flash of light modified to resemble the star trek style golden transporters from the original series.

Up in the gate station in orbit, the team appeared next to the open gate.

"Last check, everyone ready?" Matt asked, everyone nodded. "Alright then, let's move out."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Matt's team stepped out of the gate and immediately crouched down pointing their weapons out.

"Any sign from the stun device, Alex?" Matt called out.

Alexander Reed's eyes where glued to the hand held scanner. "It's starting to build up a charge, Sir."

"Let's see if the EMP gun works," Matt said nodding towards Timothy Grodin. "Lt. Grodin?"

Lt. Grodin aimed a bulky white rifle looking device at the closest stun emitter, the rifle was connected to his backpack which held the power supply, still in the early stages of development.

Reed called out, "shoot it now, if it reaches fifty percent charge the discharge could still be powerful enough."

Grodin pulled the trigger. An invisible directed electro-magnetic pulse hit the stun device which up until that point didn't show any sign of activation. The emitter flared releasing the built up charge in a spray of light before sparking.

The discharge from the stun weapon flared against their personal shields. Matt glanced at his HUD checking his shield. The shields stopped most of it only dropping five percent, but there was still a bit of a bleed through.

"Major River's," Matt sent through the communicator, "See anything?"

"I've got movement," River's sent back, "They aren't showing up on scanners."

Timothy Grodin piped up, "They won't sir, the life sign detector was calibrated for the living, not for synthetic life. We'd need a few days to setup the recalibration to include synthetics."

A synthetic with black hair appeared in the opening, he looked about five-ten and young, he was probably in his teens when he'd been transferred.

"That's not Harlan," Reed blurted out.

The teenage looking synthetic stopped in shock. "How do you know Harlan?"

Matt drug his hand over his face for a moment before answering in a sigh. "We don't."

Grodin was their Daniel Jackson and jumped to explain. "We know of him, but we've not personally met."

Matt nudged Grodin and muttered, "Not really helping."

But Grodin charged ahead, "Wait. Are you Wallace?"

The synthetic rocked back on his heals a moment, before he bolted through a door and disappeared from view.

Matt turned to Grodin for an explanation.

Grodin looked around sheepishly before speaking. "Wallace was the, 'second-to-last' survivor according to the mission files."

Grodin didn't get any further in his explanation before the short and bulky form of Harlan appeared in the doorway.

"Comtraya!"

"Greetings to you as well," Matt replied.

"Wallace tells me you know of us, have you perhaps talked with one of the others?" Harlan asked hopefully.

"Sure, let's go with that," Major Rivers muttered.

"Sorry Harlan, we haven't made contact with any of the others that we know of." Matt replied.

Harlan seemed to wilt a little at the reply but looked at them again.

"Then how do you know of us?" he asked.

"We aren't willing to discuss that at this time," Matt replied. "But we do know of you, and would like to offer our help in maintaining and restoring your home in exchange for examining your technology."

"I'm not sure," Harlan trailed off. "Surely this isn't worth..." he stumbled to find the words again before gesturing around him and then at their gear.

"Harlan, while advanced, our technology developed in a different direction than yours." Grodin spoke up. "We'd be studying your approach while also helping you maintain the facility."

"I must think on this," Harlan said waddling off. A short distance away he stopped and turned back calling out to them. "Come, come, you might as well join me."

** No Paradoxes **

Zach Mitchell's team stepped through the gate and into a group of armed guards.

A blond in a military uniform stepped forward. "State your purpose for coming here."

Zach lowered his weapon and stated as clearly as he could, "We would like to initiate a discussion for a potential alliance."

"We'll see," the uniformed blond said. "Take them to room 3A."

** No Paradoxes **

For Matt's team, six hundred years didn't make much of a difference on the place, it was still just as run down as when SG-1 had been there in the future, just slightly less run down at the moment.

The biggest decline in the operational viability of the facility hadn't really started to occur until after Wallace had presumably left, died, or suicided in general.

The two Altairians, technically able to work without rest had managed to maintain the site so far, but each year they lost a little more ground as time inevitably worked against their equipment. Each part replaced was one less part available, and while they could have maintained the facility better with more synthoids. Having more would have also been a drain on resources.

The effect on the facility was a study on the entropic process in a closed system. Without outside intervention the entire place would eventually collapse in ruin. Granted that collapse would be hundreds of years in the future.

Sheppard's team, however found a completely different situation. Fourteenth century Tollan was a different world than the one they knew. The Tollan spoke from experience when they said earth was too young. An experience that drew from both the relatively recent tragedy on their nearby sister planet, just prior to SG-1's intervention. But also from their own, and recent history.

Lack of religious conflict wasn't what saved them from the 'dark ages' that earth experienced; it was paranoia.

The Tollan Sheppard's team greeted where an entirely different kettle of fish. While technologically just slightly above twenty-first century Earth, they hadn't finished their cultural shift away from the practices of their ancient Aztec ancestors, a process initiated by their rescuers and later continued under the guidance of the Nox.

The difference in practice was the approach Tollan took to the Stargate compared to Earth. Severe isolation instead of heedless exploration, they'd of course been left with a list of friendly addresses and an even greater list of ones off limits for hostile reasons, and thus far had been content to attend only scheduled visits to the list of friendly addresses.

This was the atmosphere Sheppard's team stepped into.

"You wear your designation on your uniform," the blond said as he entered the room.

Sheppard looked up, and then glanced at his team. "Yes."

"Unfortunately the characters are foreign to me, my name is Tareim," the uniformed blond said.

"Maxwell, sometimes shortened to Max," Mitchell replied.

"Max," Tareim tried the name experimentally. "You four are unexpected."

Mitchell piped up, "What do you mean by that?"

"What _I_ mean, is that while I'd prefer to exercise caution and detain you until I can reasonably assure myself that you aren't going to be a threat." Tareim paused taking a breath. "The Tlatoanis has chosen to override my better judgment and take you up on your request for a diplomatic talk."

"Hmm... that's just too bad." Mitchell snarked.

"Major," Max hissed at him, this was not the tollan they'd expected.


	16. Chapter 16

"Rodney," Madison's tone threatened severe consequences to the subject of her ire. "You are not naming any child I share genetics with Frodo, Samwise, Gandalf, or Mini-me."

That last one sounded more like something Sheppard would use but Madison wasn't that surprised given how much time her younger cousin spent around Max growing up.

"But you aren't one of the gene donors," Rodney McKay the second tried to defend himself but Madison stared him down.

"Doesn't matter; somehow, regrettably, I'm related to you," Madison replied. "Which means I'll share some genes with any kid you have, regardless of the mechanism it takes for them to arrive."

Rodney shuffled his feet before relenting. "Fine, besides I doubt the other gene donors would have approved it anyway."

"How's your project going?" Rodney asked to change the subject.

Madison sighed, "we've hit a road block. We know what the depleted zpm is made of for the most part, and we can duplicate the base components and even have assembler create a duplicate."

"But, creating a fully charged one or just plain recharging the existing ones. The only thing they let us do with the charged ones is scan them, in case we end up needing them, and the scans don't reveal much. If we could just get the database to unlock the file," she sighed. Staring out a window looking over the interior of the city-ship.

Off in the distance she could see workers bringing in soil and plants for the inside arboretum which would surround the artificial water reservoirs.

A little closer she could see one of the Edorans leaning closely to one of the crew as they walked along the path between towers, Madison turned away from the window. "Aside from your adventures in the world of naming children what've you been up to lately?"

"Remote dialer," Rodney replied holding up tablet he was working on when she barged in. "For faster evac when under fire."

** No Paradoxes **

Waking up without much in the way of memories is a strange experience. Simeon looked around the room, everything was disjointed and he didn't really recognize the faces around him.

He looked down at the hospital gown covering him and frowned.

So many faces, the other people in the room seemed familiar but different.

"Simeon?" one of the women asked, her voice soft and laced with concern.

"Where am I?" he asked, not giving her time to answer. "Where are my parents? Who are you?"

"You're in the Aldores medical bay, you'll see them shortly, and my name is Doctor Allison Keller, but you can call me Allison if you'd like, Simeon," Doctor Keller replied.

"Why am I here?" Simeon asked.

"We wanted to make sure you were alright. How much do you remember Simeon?" Dr. Keller replied.

"It's all kind of a blur, um... I seem to remember school and falling out of a tree," Simeon paused and looked at his arm. "Hey, the scar is gone!"

"Dad!" Simeon suddenly exclaimed as Lt. Theodore Spencer walked into the room.

"At least they got that part right," Dr. Keller muttered under her breath.

Simeon jumped up and ran to Lt. Spencer who hooked his arms around Simeon and pulled him up to sit on his shoulder. "I'm not late am I?"

"Not at all, we were just getting started," Dr. Keller replied.

Simeon spotted something on Lt. Spencer's arm and poked at it. "Hey Dad, how'd you get that scar?"

"Fell out of a tree when I was your age," he replied.

"Really?" Simeon asked eyes wide.

"Yup," Theodore replied, messing with Simeon's hair.

"Hey, it looks almost exactly like the one I remember having," he gave Dr. Keller a pointed look.

Dr. Keller raised an eyebrow, Simeon tried to raise one in reply and failed, he frowned and then crossed his arms.

"We just have a few placement tests and then you're both free to go," Dr. Keller told them.

"Sarah will be happy," Theodore replied.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

**"Incoming Wormhole,"** Donovan's voice announced from overhead.

The view screen flickered to show the gate finishing the activation sequence in the orbiting station.

After a few minutes Matt's team stepped through.

"All clear," Rivers called out as the last team member stepped through and the gate deactivated.

"Aldores, Team-1 reporting in," Matt said to the empty room.

"Team-1, Aldores, completing scans now, prepare for beam out," Donovan replied through a hidden speaker system.

A moment later Matt's team disappeared from the viewscreen showing the gate room in a swirl of gold light.

Matt looked around the open staging room, spotting the general he nodded.

"Get your gear stowed, and then check in with medical. We'll debrief in three hours," General Patchkirk ordered.

Matt nodded and dismissed his team to the locker room.

"Well, how'd the mission go?" General Patchkirk asked, stopping Colonel Beckett before he could leave.

"Harlan was open to the possibility of working with us, both to restore the facility and to exchange technology. He's also not alone, SG-1's original report mentioned Harlan referencing other synthetics." Matt replied.

"I think I remember that report," Patchkirk said turning to look out the window to where one of the three ships was currently berthed.

"Yeah, Wallace, he's still alive, and with the two of them there they've been managing to maintain the place so far," Matt said. "But it's a losing battle."

The general was silent for a moment, finally he turned back to Matt. "Go get your gear stowed, Matt. I'll see you in three hours."

"Sir," Matt replied turning to leave.

** no Paradoxes **

Max looked around the room, it had been an hour since they'd been informed the Tlatloanis would speak with them.

"Nice digs," Mitchell commented. "A bit purple for my tastes. But, it has this sort of ancient civilization feel to it."

"Shut up, Mitchell," Captain Marcus Pierce groused from the corner. Marcus was their techie, and up until this point had remained relatively quiet, carrying on a quiet conversation with the other member of the team, First Lieutenant David Harriman

Lt. David Harriman was the team's linguist and archeologist. A fairly quiet young man with short blond hair. He had this habit of turning up where you least expected him.

Mitchell raised his hands and made a surrender motion to ward off the other two team member's glares. "Alright, I'll tone it down."

Just then the door opened, revealing a different tollan than before.

"My name is Ollin, I am to lead you to the Tlatoanis," Ollin said quietly.

Ollin was probably about 177 cm. tall not the shortest of the group but also not the tallest. His slicked back black hair gave the impression of a few extra centimeters of height.

The walk to the meeting room took them outside of the military facility and down a broad road, with eight guards escorting and flanking them on all sides.

At the end of the broad road was a stepped pyramid with none of the wear and tear of the earth counterparts. This had been quarried from local purple stone and painted with all sorts of designs over the carved figures.

"The painting helps prevent the natural erosion from the elements," Ollin said seeing the direction of Lt. Harriman's glance. "Our ancestors built them when they first got here, it was what they knew so it was what they did. We maintain them and even use some of the structures as a reminder."

David nodded in silent acknowledgement as the group ascended the first set of stone stairs.

** No Paradoxes **

Simeon Spencer blinked looking down at the test and then up at Lt. Spencer. "Do I have to?"

"Don't worry son, just do the ones you can and don't worry about the ones you can't, it's only a placement test," Theodore replied walking over to the door. "I can stay if you would like, but I also wanted to have a word with Dr. Keller."

Simeon blinked. "Alright," he said with a sigh picking up the stylus and tablet.

Theodore set the sound dampener on the room to one way so they'd hear if Simeon called, and headed over to Dr. Keller.

"He's healthy and the memory download is settling in," Dr. Keller said at his questioning glance. "He will need regular physical activity, though. It's normal and to be expected with the cloning process, he needs time to adjust to the body. Lucky for him and us, this is easier for him as a child, than it would be for an adult clone."

"How do you mean?" Theodore asked.

"Well, with adult memories, the individual is unprepared for the new body and a significant amount of time needs to be spent relearning muscle memory." Dr. Keller said. "For him though, this is just the start of the awkward stage all children go through when growing up."

"How about psychologically?" Theodore asked.

"You mean, telling him he's tube grown, and his memories aren't really his own," Dr. Keller said bluntly. "Just like the rest of us Theodore, his response will largely depend on how it's coached to him."

"Honesty is probably the best policy," Theodore said to himself. "He's still our son, just a few steps were skipped."


	18. Chapter 18

**Tollan  
**Stargate Complex

The view from the platform at the top of the pyramid was stunning, the Tollan stargate complex and accompanying temple structures were located on a low plateau surrounded by wind carved mesa; the purple and red layered rock surrounded the area creating a defensive blind giving clear view of the stargate plateau to defenders while making it hard for an attacking force to navigate away from the stargate.

A long winding trail could be made out, from the lighter color of the gravel, leading away from the mesa the complex was on.

"Beautiful isn't it," someone said, drawing the groups attention away from the scenery, and to the three seated at a long table on a raised platform in civilian clothing. The platform was covered by a thin stone roof supported on carved stone pillars to keep the heat of the midday sun away.

"Breathtaking," Lt. Harriman agreed quietly.

Marcus wasn't quite in awe of the view as everyone else, having grown up near Verde Park in Colorado. "We have similar geological formations near where I grew up on our home world," he commented.

Seeing that they had the group's attention the Tollan man in the middle spoke first, "Greetings and good health, I am Tonauc, this is Melinteca," he pointed to his left, "And this is Tlanec," pointing to the right.

Sheppard introduced their group in return while the team took their seats on the opposite side of the table at the invitation of the Tlatoanis.

"We should learn more of each others ways before we make lasting ties between our peoples," Tlanec said.

"It's complicated at the moment, How about you start?" Lt. Harriman said.

Melinteca leaned back and muttered, "great, Tlanec is a historian you'll never get him to shut up."

"Without the religious caste reinforcing the social structure the Goa'uld imposed on our ancestors," Tlanec began shooting Melinteca a look. "The majority of our people arrived here as artisans, tradesmen, merchants, astronomers and scientists. This temple is the last attempt our early ancestors made at keeping their old societal norms."

"While we still use the same titles as back then the underlying structure is different," Tlanec said. "We are the Tlatoanis, or council of speakers, I am the voice of history, Melinteca is the voice of insight, and Tonauc is the voice of the present need."

"How are you chosen to be one of the voices?" Capt. Marcus Pierce asked.

"We are chosen by the Tellatopetl," Tlanec replied.

"City leaders," David said quietly.

Tlanec nodded in confirmation of the translation. "Close enough. There is always a list of appropriate candidates for the position kept by each tellatepetl, when the vote is cast to choose the successor the people can affirm or denounce the choice."

"How are the Tellatepetl chosen?" Sheppard asked.

"Delegation, from the smallest unit up, every ten families choose one of their number to represent them, and those representatives meet with their neighboring nine representatives to choose another of their ten, until a single voice emerges based on merit the altepetl then confirms or denies them."

Tonauc spoke up then, "How about yourselves?"

"Complicated," Sheppard replied.

"We've had experience with many different styles of government, from republics to true democracy, Military dictatorship, socialism, and many things in between," David replied. "At the moment I suppose from the outside, we would appear to be a military dictatorship."

"This is a result of the conflict we know will inevitably arise between us and the Goa'uld," David said.

"Why should it arise?" Melinteca asked.

"One of our great leaders once penned these words, 'We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;' even without these words as a core tenet of our philosophy, the Goa'uld will inevitably see us as a threat, regardless of our technological level," David replied.

"This is something we've learned about the Goa'uld from observation, if they cannot conquer they will use subterfuge to bring about a collapse," Mitchell spoke up, his usual joking mood gone.

** No Paradoxes **

**Aldores  
**Medical bay

Theodore watched as his son finished the last question on the test and checked over his answers. "How did you do?" he asked stepping into the room.

Simeon jumped a little and then turned and gave him a glare for startling him, sighing he passed the tablet over to Lt. Spencer. "Okay, I guess," Simeon said dropping his shoulders again and looking a little nervous while Lt. Spencer looked over the results.

Theodore looked up from the page and smiled, "You did great!"

"I did?" Simeon asked, exclaiming, "but I didn't get them all right!"

"Wasn't that kind of test," Theodore said giving Simeon a hug. "Besides, this is just the multiple choice section, still have to get the other half evaluated. But, if the multiple choice is an indication you probably did great there as well."

"Oh," Simeon said and then smiled and relaxed into Theodore's side.

"Simeon," Theodore asked after a moment. "Do you know what a clone is?"

"Yeah, I think I remember reading about it in a book," Simeon said.

"And you know about how baby's are made, right?" Theodore asked.

"Gross, but yeah," Simeon said.

"You know how you remember having a scar on your arm but it's not there right?" Theodore asked.

"You're not trying to tell me I'm a clone are you?" Simeon asked.

"You're not a clone," Theodore said quickly, "Sarah just couldn't make a baby like usual."

"Okay," Simeon shrugged.

"Just like that?" Theodore asked.

"You're Dad and I'm Simeon, I have some of your memories, but I'm obviously not a clone," Simeon said pointing to his Green eyes as compared to Theodore's brown.

"How old are you," Theodore jokingly asked.

"Either ten hours or ten years, does it matter?" Simeon replied. "What now?"

"Now," Theodore paused for a moment. "I think Dr. Keller wanted to get your physical taken care of and then how about we go explore the city."

"Sure," Simeon replied. The pair stood and walked to the door.

"Lt. Spencer!" Matthew Beckett called out spotting them as he walked into the medbay.

Simeon looked up at Lt. Spencer and smirked. "Uncle Matt!" he yelled and jumped on the unprepared Col. Beckett.

"Ach, who's this wee bairn a crawlin on me," Beckett's scottish accent slipping in.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

**Altair  
**Underground Stargate complex

Wallace stared at Harlan, "I may look like a youngling Harlan, but do not forget I'm just as old as you."

"Comtraya!" Harlan said raising his hands in a dismissive gesture. "We need help, and they seem willing enough."

"You may be the older one, but I live here to, does it not cross your mind to ask for my input?" Wallace asked.

Harlan slumped down a bit, "They disabled the stunner anyway."

"And how the hell did you find time to build that stunner anyway?" Wallace asked.

** No Paradoxes **

**Aldores  
**Meeting Room 7

"So, Harlan's immediate request was for materials in the form of trinium, naquadah, iron, and a few other metals," General Patchkirk summed up.

"Yes, that was in addition to more people to help with the repair work, either as synthetic duplicates or live people," Hadrian Rivers clarified.

"Where your scans able to get anything worthwhile?" the general asked.

"Enough to be enticing but some portions of the technology are black boxed with sensor opaque materials," Timothy Grodin said. "We should be able to set up a wireless energy network compatible with synthetics in the city though."

"Where there any indications as to how the planet came to be the way it is now?" Patchkirk asked.

"We accessed the sensor net once we got back, the planet is on the edge of Goa'uld territory. Based on the known future position of the individual Goa'uld domains we're not ruling out sabotage by the nearby Goa'uld snake," Col. Reed replied.

"I see," Patchkirk replied.

**Tollan  
**Tlatoanis summit

"The simple truth is that your neutrality agreements will not protect you from Goa'uld treachery," Mitchell said.

"We're in talks with the remnants of one such race right now," Marcus Pierce said. "The surface of their planet was made toxic over the course of a year."

"Neutrality will only stop them from bringing an armada, not from attempted to bring you down using underhanded methods," Mitchell continued, he placed a projector on the table and hit the switch to show a Tobin mine, the image was taken from their galactic sensor network.

"That's a mine from the Tobin minefield," Max said. "They're part of an ingenious self repairing planetary protection grid. Any vessel that behaves in a threatening manner in the system will be targeted by these and destroyed."

"The Tobin believed themselves safe behind this field. But they were poisoned by an addictive substance we've only heard referenced as Venom. The only thing that remains of them is this minefield which the Goa'uld make use of as a way to ensure negotiations between themselves are kept honest," David Harriman said.

The three Tollan leaders exchanged a glance that said more than their silence at this revelation, Melinteca final spoke, "we were unaware the Tobin had fallen."

** No Paradoxes **

"I'm not sure we can afford to ally ourselves with them," Tonauc said uneasily.

"They do court destruction by placing themselves in a position of direct conflict with the Goa'uld," Tlanec said. "However, in my opinion, I don't see how we can afford not to at least open the lines of communication between our two peoples."

The three were silent for a moment absorbing the information until Mellinteca spoke up, "While we are currently hidden from the Goa'uld thanks to the foresight of the Omeyocan in choosing this planet for us. It will not always be this way. We were warned the Goa'uld would eventually expand their domain in our direction."

Tonauc nodded and sighed, "We've already advanced past the point where the Goa'uld would consider us a threat. It was my hope that our continued isolation would be enough to ensure our survival."

"Have the Tellatepetl submitted their opinions?" Tlanec asked after a moment of silence.

While the Tlatoanis had the final say, the input from the Tellatopetl helped reassure that they were in the will of the people. It also allowed them to examine dissenting opinions in case they had missed something.

A nearby guard stepped forward with three tablets he handed over to the Tlatoanis.

"Are we agreed on the course of action?" Tonauc asked when the three finally set down the tablets.

"As much as I would like to, we will not ally ourselves at this time," Tlanec said.

"We should still keep a dialog open for future possibilities," Melinteca added.

"They'll be escorted to the gate with the promise that we will reconsider the idea in the future," Tonauc finished.

**Aldores  
**Pier 3, Tower 12, Lt. Spencer's quarters

"What are you doing, Simeon?" Lt. Spencer asked walking into the living room where Simeon had an box of electrical components and a bread board set on the coffee table.

Simeon shrugged, "Not sure, just had this idea."

Simeon pressed the final wire into the breadboard and jumped back when it threw a spark into the air.

Theodore tensed about to rush to his room to grab his comm badge to call for a containment team.

"Wait," Simeon said pulling Lt. Spencer back to the device sitting on the coffee table which was humming.

A moment later the hum died down and a static image of a hot air balloon formed floating over the table, it was monotone, and lacked detail but still surprising given the simple components used to build the device. A moment later the image flickered and the projector sparked dying.

Simeon frowned and then slumped. "I thought it would work this time."

"How long have you been working on that?" Theodore asked.

"Um... half a day maybe," Simeon said.

"Simeon, for a day of work without an actual lab you've managed to make a working holographic projector," Theodore said, carefully sitting on the couch next to him and putting his arm around Simeon's shoulder. "I'm honestly impressed and proud of you son."

Simeon looked up and smiled leaning into Lt. Spencer's side.

"I do wonder where you got the idea though," Theodore said.

**Aldores  
**Medical Bay

"He built a holographic projector out of spare electrical components in the living room," Theodore said, "Now explain where exactly he got the knowledge to do that, because I know the educational program around here is advanced, but not that advanced."

"I'm a doctor Lt. Spencer; not a mad scientist!" Dr. Keller's tone laced with steel. "I'm not the one who picked the memories nor did I okay this project. I'm just as upset over this breach of trust as you are."

"Trust," Theodore said slowly.

"You don't think," Dr. Keller said and then stopped.

Theodore calmly pulled out a tablet and sent a message off to Lt. Col. Pendergast. "I don't know doctor, but I aim to find out."

Ten minutes later Samuel Pendergast walked into the room flanked by a team of airmen he'd hand picked.

"Doctor Keller," he nodded towards her.

**Aldores  
**City Command

"**Incoming wormhole**," Lt. Donavan's voice called out as the display flicked to the orbital Stargate complex.

The watery blue membrane of the open wormhole settled into place, a few seconds later Sheppard's team disembarked.

"Clear," the last team member called out as he exited and the gate shut down.

"**Scanning, please wait,**" Lt. Donavan said over the intercom. "**Prepare for beam out.**"

"Ready when you are, Donavan," Sheppard called out to the empty room.


	20. Chapter 20

**Aldores**, Briefing room 1

"Master-Stranger protocols are in effect," Lt. Col. Pendergast said as he entered the room.

"Should never have let him read that web series," Maj. General David Kowalski, a long-time friend of the Lt. Colonel muttered under his breath.

Samuel Pendergast ignored the comment, and dropped his things at his seat before proceeding to the head of the room, "Lt. Theodore Spencer reported an unapproved memory set had been included in his son's download. Dr. Keller and her team are currently going over the whole download to identify all the extraneous memories. So far they've identified seventeen separate technologies from the Asgard core that were included in the package."

"Wait," David, held up a hand and asked, "What?"

"Someone decided it'd be a smart idea to give a ten year old clone the schematics for advanced technology," Pendergast said. "And they did so without approval or supervision."

General Patchkirk sat up a little straighter. "Lt. Col, I'm authorizing use of the za'tarc detectors."

"Sir," Pendergast nodded in affirmation of the order. "I have teams securing everyone involved."

**Aldores**, North pier, 'secret' lab.

Eduard Heinrich heard the door swish open around the alcove and looked over at the half obscured form laying in the medical stasis chamber which had been modified with a bulky cloning module and an Asgard designed growth accelerator.

On the other side of the room on a table was a partially disassembled data core. Eduard looked back towards the opening where any second now a security team would come rushing in. Eduard swallowed and hit a few buttons on the keyboard only to curse as the screen blinked at him informing him his privileges at this terminal had been revoked.

He sighed and sat back in his chair putting his hands behind his head. He silently cursed 'that idiot,' Casey, who insisted they needed to move ahead with the project without giving them time for adequate trials. He triggered the hardwired switch he put in when he first claimed this lab and the computer storage where his other research was crumpled as a it experienced the brief but catastrophic stress from a gravimetric charge he'd hidden over the lab's data storage.

A sharp sound of metal scraping against metal and the hard drives were compressed into so much scrap. Another moment's thought and Eduard decided that Rodger Casey would find out exactly how badly he'd played his cards. The second set of charges weren't activated leaving Rodger's pet projects unharmed for the security team to confiscate.

Rodger Casey's presence with the expedition was the result of his grandfather bullying and twisting arms to ensure the younger man was included. And while the expedition wouldn't discriminate based upon who his grandfather was, they might have been more hesitant to include him if they knew that his mother's maiden name was Kinsey. Unlike Eduard who'd managed to get here on his own merit only to be recruited later by Casey's faction.

Eduard leaned back lazily in the chair watching as the team secured the room, and here it was all burning down around him. He'd make sure Casey took the fall for it though, damned smug bastard.

~ No Paradoxes ~

Capt. Thomas Lorne tapped his comm-badge and spoke into it. "Control, we have an unauthorized lab in the outer edge of the city."

"Copy, Janus protocol is in effect," Donovan replied over the comm. Janus protocol was designed in response to all the ancient labs and tech left scattered throughout this galaxy and the next, and called for the most detailed scans they could possibly get before they even thought about touching anything.

Lorne's attention was drawn to the lab's only occupant, the balding and somewhat smaller man sitting in the chair with his hands behind his head.

"I'll cooperate," Eduard said, through a slight German accent, when he noticed Lorne's attention.

"What's the deal with that?" Lorne pointed at the stasis chamber.

"That's Mr. Rodger Casey's project," Eduard replied, "He was working on increasing synaptic density, the clone is currently blank but if the stasis chamber is deactivated it will trigger the stored memory download automatically."

"Gotcha, don't trigger the chamber then," Lorne said.

"Control, we have a khalek down here and need a team to edit the prepared memory package," Lorne called into the comm-badge.

**Aldores**, Medical

Dr. Keller gave Simeon a smile and a reassuring pat on the shoulder, "I know, you just got out of here and now you're right back. No need to worry though it's just a checkup."

Simeon returned the expression with a small smile of his own and then looked around the room. "What's in there?" he asked pointing towards the quarantine chamber.

"That's a special room," Dr. Keller replied and told him about the Alteran lady they'd found frozen in Antarctica.

"She's going to get better though right?" Simeon asked.

"Someday, it'll take a while though until we find the right cure," Dr. Keller replied.

"I wish I hadn't made that stupid thing now," Simeon said.

Theodore stepped forward and gave him a hug, before looking him in the eye. "I don't, it was kind of cool. Besides this is all just to make sure everything is okay."

**Aldores**, Cafeteria 4

"I'm just saying," Grodin said. "We shouldn't dismiss the possibilities of Altair's synthetic duplicates."

"And I'm telling you not everyone is going to be comfortable with the idea," Hadrian Rivers replied.

"They don't have to be, anyone uncomfortable with the idea can opt out, same as what they're doing with the clones," Col. Reed said.

David Harriman snorted, he'd joined the group to wind down after stowing his gear. "And see how that turned out? Some idiot decided to include extras in one of the early adopters."

Marcus Pierce looked up, from his plate. "What's that?" he asked.

David explained the issue with Lt. Spencer's kid.

"They better not let Spencer get near the idiot until after they get everything they need out of him," Pierce said.

"Why's that?" Grodin asked.

Pierce smirked. "You haven't seen Spencer when someone threatens family," was all he would say.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

**Altair**, Underground Complex

Harlan watched the Aldorien engineers swarming the aged facility he'd called home. He'd marveled at the range of tools they brought with them, from deceptively primitive to almost disturbingly advanced.

He turned towards Wallace, the other synthetic eyeing the teams on the screen with an impassive stare, arms crossed.

"Comtraya!" Harlan said to the companion next to him. "They are fixing things, no?"

Wallace raised a skeptical eyebrow. "We'll see," he said.

~ No Paradoxes ~

"Oh god, there's two of them," Madison said with a groan.

Radomil gave her a look. "I don't see what the problem is, you're going to get your own duplicate too," he said.

"But there's two of him," Madison repeated.

Across the room the synthetic Rodney opened his eyes. "Right then, shut up I've got things to do," Synth-Rodney said.

"Do I really sound like that," McKay asked.

"Yes," Madison said.

"Well, your turn," McKay said, ignoring her.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Aldores**, General's Quarters, Central Tower

The intercom chirped in James Patchkirk's quarters, he rolled over and looked at the alarm clock. Five in the morning, he muttered under his breath, tapping the button on the comm.

"What is it?" he called out trying to remember which officer was on comm duty.

Lt. Orlov was a member of the Russian addition to the crew, who took over comm on the night shift, a bright young man who reminded everyone of the actor Anton Yelchin who played Chekov in the Abrams Star Trek reboot.

"Sir, watchtower reports the Aschen Primary just went nova," Lt. Kir Orlov said.

Patchkirk sighed, trouble of dealing with that particular group of genocidal sociopaths, was there was no good way of dealing with them. Everything they knew about the Aschen came from the contact they had with their client races and the one Aschen ambassador. For all he knew the Aschen homeworld knew nothing of the actions their leaders went to in order to support the continued growth of their society.

Taking the Aschen out, by way of an exploding sun, there were a few possibilities neither of which Patchkirk much liked. Most of them stemmed directly from the decision to travel back in time. And right now the foremost possibilities was that either their arrival had somehow changed the course of events in such a major ripple that the Aschen made a powerful enemy, or someone from his expedition had taken it upon themselves to take them out.

"I'll be right up," Patchkirk said.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Aschen Prime**, high orbit of Aschen primary star, thirty minutes prior.

"Well Mr. Anderson?" Rodger Casey said to the other agent sitting next to him.

The small cargo ship which they were using had been tucked away on one of the three earthships, cloaked and unaccounted for, was hidden there by their sponsors for just such missions as this. They'd used the chaos of the asteroid rain to slip away for just this sort of mission.

"Just doing a few last minute checks on the forcefield," John Anderson replied.

"And you're sure we have enough time to get away?" Rodger asked.

"Plenty," John replied.

The cargo door opened and a tractor beam pushed the active gate out, towards the star, as soon as it cleared the ship, Rodger cut power to the beam and yelled, "punch it!"

The gate slowly fell towards sun as their little cargo ship raced into a hyperspace window and reappeared well outside the system.

"Did it work?" Rodger asked.

John smirked. "Any second now," John said.

The screen flared as the sensors were temporarily blinded by the flash of the Aschen primary going nova.

"And there it is," John said.

"Good let's get back to Home Plate," Rodger said, hoping nothing had gone wrong while they were away.

"Give the sensors a moment to readjust, the nova temporarily blinded us," John replied.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Aldores**, Medical bay

"To put it simply, lieutenant, you got lucky," Keller said as she finished applying an epidermal regenerative compound to one of the many patients that came through the medical center daily. "I expect you to follow the safety guidelines when working from here on, understood?"

The lieutenant nodded sheepishly, wincing slightly his left shoulder and arm covered in a chemical burn.

Keller dismissed him with a bottle of the medicine and instructions to apply every six hours, until the tube was empty. Her only patient left for the day was their guest tucked away in an isolation chamber.

After months of submitting requests, they'd finally assigned a team to her lab. Doctor Keller glanced at the computer screen where their most recent scan was displayed. There was definitely a multidimensional component to the way the plague attacked the body.

"You're sure this will work?" she asked, as the team of engineers finished assembling the bulky device.

"It's a phase interdiction field generator," Captain Thomas Matthis replied. "It'll work ma'am. Just need some more calibration to properly target your little beasties."

"Just get on with it," Doctor Keller said.

The phase interdiction field was part of their most recent attempt to cure the Alteran female ensconced in the stasis chamber. She'd survived for thousands of years under the Antarctic ice, the plague going dormant with her body. To completely cure her though they'd need to take care of the virons, that were, for lack of a better term, out of phase.

Thomas pressed a button on the control panel and the group collectively held their breath as the emitter on the machine hummed with power. A moment later it pulsed and the field expanded outward from the device, going through the walls covering a thirty meter sphere.

It didn't seem to do anything until Thomas reached over and started slowly turning a series of dials on the control panel while staring at what looked like a bulkier android smart-phone.

The captain's 'tricorder' was one of the more recently approved projects building on an existing earth technology to duplicate the technology shown in fiction. The glass was replaced with a self-repairing polymer, and the capacitive touch approach was abandoned in favor of tapping into the newly added sensor suite instead. Capt. Matthis' tricorder had been further specialized to his job bringing a whole suite of delicate sensors that helped him pinpoint the exact numbers he needed for this calibration.

Doctor Keller was fixed on the viewscreen watching the sensors and video aimed at her patient as the individual virions flickered in and out of the sensors. Ten minutes into the calibration she glanced over at a bioscan and called out to the captain, "Shut it down."

~ No Paradoxes ~

The Jackson was a diplomatic carrier, at least that's what it said on paper, in reality it was a modified Daedalus hull, and the shields had been replaced with ones that were near Atlantis strength. And just because she was considered a diplomatic carrier, didn't mean she was lacking in teeth.

The majority of the rail-guns, which required ammunition, had been replaced in favor of an earth version of Asgard energy turrets. Internally a large portion of three of the decks in the middle had also been redesigned to resemble more a cruise liner than a ship of war.

With the smaller amount of external weapons, the compliment of fighters had also been increased. Those too saw a change from the earlier F-302. Although the Asgard had abandoned that approach to war when they started cloning, that hadn't stopped a few of them from continuing their own designs.

Deciding to copy an existing approach they'd seen with the Eurondans they located a suitable mental interface in the combined Asgard-Alteran database.

Taking the existing solutions the Asgard had provided the Aldoran design team worked all of it into a relatively inexpensive single person fighter that managed to balance versatility and safety.

Added to these elements would be unmanned drones which would be slaved to a nearby manned fighter. While there had been some misgivings about the system due to the vulnerability to electronic warfare. An existing Asgard solution had again been located, the solution would regrettably slow construction time by a considerable amount and would make transferring fighter compliments to another ship difficult, but would provide near instantaneous relay of commands, via quantum entanglement.

The final improvement was a beaming relay, which in simulations showed an eighty-nine percent retrieval rate for pilots in the event of catastrophic failure, which is another way of saying, in the event they get blown up.

Their final safeguard was an upgrade they'd sent out to the Milky Way sensor net, in the event the vessel would be lost, the network would attempt to beam the crew out and forward them to the nearest stargate to return to Aldores. It was a safeguard they hoped to never need, and it would also probably burn out the probes involved.

**Jackson**, Bridge

Major Gen. Kowalski leaned forward in the chair; this sector of space was between Edora and the now rapidly dissipating Aschen primary. And they'd been getting odd readings from the sensor net for the past few days.

"Anything out there?" he asked the sensor technician for what must by the fiftieth time in the past hour.

"A few unexplained blips on the edges but nothing concrete yet sir," Lt. Sanjin Vogt replied, the lieutenant was being remarkably patient with the constant interruption.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Hyperspace**, Unnamed Goa'uld cargo vessel

Roger Casey busied himself with a novel he'd downloaded to a tablet before leaving. Not that he'd admit to reading this particular novel, he wasn't the type to go for vampire novels usually but something about this one kept his attention. He'd almost closed the book when the author revealed that her vampires contrary to the usual accepted myth did not spontaneously combust in sunlight, sparkling instead.

John had only given the title a cursory glance before handing it back in disgust returning to the controls to monitor their progress.

Roger was halfway into the book when the ship shuddered and he felt his stomach flip as they dropped out of hyperspace.

"What happened?" he called out.

Mr. Anderson rapidly tapped a series of commands on the control orb, "Something knocked us out of hyperspace."

"That ever happen before?" Roger asked shuffling into the cockpit.

"Seems there's another reason this area of space has been avoided," John said. "According to the goa'uld logs, something in this region makes their hyperdrive unreliable. Forcing the drive to compensate would significantly reduce the operational lifespan of the drive."


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

**Jackson**,  
bridge

Out of the corner of his eye, Kowalski noticed the blinking light on the sensor panel, immediately followed by the ship shuddering slightly as something impacted their shields, Kowalski was more than ready.

"Report," General Kowalski barked.

"That'd be a cloaked mine impacting the port shield, Sir," Vogt replied.

"And where there's one cloaked mine there's more," David Kowalski muttered.

The ship vibrated a little as the shield absorbed a second impact.

"That was the forward shield this time sir," Vogt said.

"Shield integrity is at ninety-seven percent," an airman called out from his station.

"Helm, full reverse now!" Kowalski ordered.

The powerful ion drives fell silent, maneuvering drives across the forward hull springing to life. Slowly the ship reversed course, weathering another two mine impacts on the powerful shields.

The sensors combed space around them, searching for any flaw in the minefields' cloak as they slowly went back the way they came.

Another mine exploding off their rear shield blinded the sensors Vogt was staring at. "Sir, that one hit the rear shield." he said.

"Helm all stop," Kowalski said. "Anything on sensors?"

"It's not a standard goa'uld cloak, still examining the log for any sign of a vulnerability we can use," Vogt replied.

Kowalski frowned leaning forward in his seat. They sat trapped in the minefield unsure how much room they had to maneuver and unwilling to attempt a hyperspace jump while unable to predict the location of the cloaked mines.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Unknown location**,  
Unnamed Goa'uld cargo vessel

Casey looked up from the controls and out the window in the cockpit. "John?" Casey said, hand on the back of the pilot's seat. "What's that?"

John looked up, the ship before them was huge, and very close. The two of them simply stared speechless at the ship before them as the alien craft slowly moved closer.

The beeping of the comm brought John Anderson's attention back to the present as he tapped the orb to bring up the display. On the holographic screen was a simple text message written in goa'uld.

"What's it say, Casey said shaking out of his stupor when the message replaced the view.

"Goa'uld vessel, violated territory, something about corrective action," Anderson translated.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Jackson**,  
bridge

"Sir, I'm receiving a distress call," a lt. called from the comm station. "It's one of our's but we shouldn't have anyone out this far."

Sanjin Vogt pulled the information over to his station and started matching it up with what he had from Watchtower. "It's a small goa'uld cargo vessel approximately half a light year from us, there's a larger unidentified alien vessel closing in on them."

"Weapons hot," David Kowalski ordered.

"The signal's gone, sir," the Lt. said.

"Watchtower only reports the alien vessel now sir," Sanjin said.

"Anything on the mines?" David asked.

"Still unable to penetrate their cloak sir," Sanjin said. "Sir, the alien ship just jumped to hyperspace, and is headed in our direction."

A moment later the mines shimmered into existence on their sensors, there were millions spanning the void around them. "Lt. Vogt?" General Kowalski asked.

"Wasn't me," Vogt replied.

On the viewscreen the alien vessel dropped out of hyperspace the now visible mines harmlessly scattering away from the ship. It was slightly larger than the Jackson with a forward section jutting out from the main body and two wing sections made up of several segments folding out from the sides in an shape that might have been reminiscent of a croissant.

The alien ship was made of a dark purple metal that reflected the starlight. The spine of the ship was engraved with a feathered design.

"I'm getting a signal from the alien ship," the airman at the communications station said.

"Chenok thitan hul, mok thul, chenok libren miq thul," a gruff voice sounded from the speakers.

"Translator is not working," the airman said from his station.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Unknown**,  
unknown

Roger Casey groaned as he opened his eyes, he was in a small cell with no visible openings. Light seemed to come from all around and nowhere.

"Hello?" he called out.

As he paced the room a small section folded out revealing a toilet and sink. When he walked away, they shifted back into the wall and floor.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Aldores,**  
_General's office_

General Patchkirk frowned at the viewscreen on his desk; leaning back in his chair he steepled his fingers, "So you're saying an unknown vessel fired at you while you were surrounded by a cloaked minefield."

"That's not all James," Kowalski said, using his first name since they were holding this briefing by encrypted channel in the privacy of their respective offices. "There was also an electronic payload in the message they sent out, if we'd been using the hybrid computer architecture we developed based off of the goa'uld design it would have left us dead in the water."

General Patchkirk's view snapped back towards the viewscreen, away from the fishtank on the other side of the room, his focused sharply on Kowalski. "Definitely hostile then, but given the nature of the more subtle attack and how it focused on goa'uld derived systems, at least they're also hostile towards the goa'uld. I'll let you worry about this one."

The two generals discussed a some other projects going on for a few minutes before Patchkirk's watch alarm beeped. After turning the alarm off, he told the other general, "David, if you'll excuse me I have another meeting scheduled."

The two said their goodbyes and the screen cleared returning to the main menu.

Some twenty minutes later, James Patchkirk was changed into an off duty uniform and beamed across the city and entered the apartment.

"So, this is Simeon," General Patchkirk said as he entered the room.

Lt. Sarah Spencer broke into a wide smile as the General walked in. "Finally found the time to take a break dad?"

"David and Amelia can take care of things for a few hours Sarah," Patchkirk replied.

Sarah gave him a look before turning back to her son. "Simeon, Grandpa James would like to spend some time with you."

Simeon looked up from his notebook and gave a shy smile.

James groaned a bit as he lowered himself onto the couch next to Simeon. "Never get old son," he said rubbing his knee.

"Can we go to the park Grandfather?"

~ No Paradoxes ~

**The ****_Carter_****,**  
_Starboard Lounge_

"Where's Mitchell?" Sheppard asked as he munched on a snack in the mess.

"I believe I heard something about a ping-pong tournament with one of the engineers," Marcus replied without looking up from the tablet.

"Remind me why we're here again?" David asked moving away from the window and taking a chair next to Marcus.

"Someone needed to survey the nearby planets for resources," Sheppard said repeating the same thing he'd said for what must have been the hundredth time. "And we're here because we're trained for planetside missions in case there's a need to make contact with any locals we discover along the way."

David opened his mouth but Marcus reached over and stopped him before he could say anything. "Please think carefully before invoking the Sheppard genetics."

David snorted but kept his mouth closed.

"Hey, Marcus! I thought you said this system didn't have a stargate?" Maxwell Sheppard said as a startlingly familiar object floated past the window catching his eye.

"It doesn't, or at least we didn't get a response from one when we pinged the dialing devices," Pierce replied.

"Then what's that?" Sheppard pointed out the window to a ring hanging in space over the planet.

"Huh," Pierce said looking where Max was pointing, before grabbing his tablet and quickly pulling up sensor logs.

Lt. David Harriman walked up next to them and gave a low whistle, "Looks like a stargate to me, Mark."

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Edora,**  
_Orbital gateroom_

Harlan stepped through the gate, a moment later Wallace and one of the Aldores team members stepped out of the gate behind him, the three patiently waited in the empty cube having been advised of the security precaution before agreeing to the visit.

A moment later the three disappeared in a flash of yellow light and the musical chime that came with that method of transportation.

When the group rematerialized in the receiving zone of the promenade on the northern tier Harlan immediately registered his internal battery storage connect to the wireless grid that had been installed.

"Comtraya!" Harlan exclaimed smiling widely and clapping his hands.

Wallace felt a twinge of annoyance at his companion but didn't dwell on it as he took in the sight. The large doors on the dome overhead were open to the sky above, giving them a view they hadn't seen in 9,000 years.


	23. Chapter 23

23 - You must construct additional pylons.

The Edoran people reacted in a mostly positive manner towards their new neighbors most of them immediately taking advantage of the offer to school their children alongside the earthborn children on the advanced city. The first marriage between the two peoples had already taken place just a few months after they cleared the other side of the belt and touched down.

As often happens when change happens, there are some who for various reasons don't adapt. While many embraced the Aldoran technology, a few Edorans, mostly the older generation, chose to return to what they knew; farming the land around their settlement.

Just as the Edorans embraced the people of Earth, some of the Earth personnel, having been kept in service due to the crisis, the one that led to them violating causality to travel back into the past, also asked and received permission to settle in the Edoran community as well.

Overall the first of many steps had been taken to tie the two peoples together strengthening both in the process. The time-tossed people of earth gaining an agricultural base and adding to their genepool, while the Edorans gained a leg up in technology and a new ally, protection, and advanced warning in regards to the fire rain.

A lot of effort had been put into ensuring the Edoran youth moving into the city would arrive with the proper knowledge base to adequately compete with their Aldoran contemporaries.

Meanwhile, plans have begun on a shipyard to be placed in the debris belt, with four slipways set on tracks that could extend to allow for construction or repair of larger vessels which would be unable to make safe planetfall.

For power one of the plans floating around was to place an experimental antimatter reactor in the center of the station, around which a neutrino-ion generator shell will be built to increase the efficiency of the reactor, sub-atomic particles released by the violent reaction between matter and antimatter would be converted to additional electricity. Of course they would also have other secondary naquadah reactors as well.

Construction had actually started on a series of relay satellites, placed throughout the field would allow crew rotations year round with the beam routed through the relays until it was close enough to the planet. An added bonus would be that if needed the satellite could use as a platform upon which additional shipyards could be built.

The plan called for a powerful computer core to support the 3D modelling needed to quickly reconfigure the refined metals, materializing whole parts for the ships under construction. While it would be theoretically possible to materialize a complete ship, that would be was unfeasible for a variety of reasons, power generation only being the chief concern, a ship built in such a way would have to be carefully modeled down to the last detail and there was always the possibility of flaws in the replication process which would ruin the final product.

Much simpler to just materialize a piece at a time and have crews and robotics position the pieces for assembly. It would still be a time consuming process to assemble ships in such a fashion, but far faster than their old methods.

Not to mention the large debris field of readily refined material they could use as stock material.

The station wouldn't be without teeth either. A limited number of Antimatter torpedoes had been installed alongside the orange shifted Asgard beam weapons. Triple redundant sets of rotating shield emitters had been installed as well capable of shielding the entire station including any docked ships under construction.

The details were still be finalized and thus the project wouldn't be built and completed for another six months. But when it was ready they had several ship designs waiting to be put into play.

Meanwhile Maxwell's team was busy several hundred light years away examining the latest mystery.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**The ****_Carter_****,**  
_Starboard Lounge_

"Wait," Max said, "If there's a gate here then why didn't the system detect it?"

"Lack of atmosphere?" David Harriman guessed.

"No, we've dialed to gates on moons without an atmosphere before," Sheppard countered.

"Well there isn't a DHD, so likely those somehow override the gate and allow connections when in a situation lacking atmosphere it would otherwise not," Pierce theorized.

"What about the Pegasus space-gates?" Sheppard asked.

"Did we ever try dialing one from a DHD? Other than from in the city or on a puddle jumper that is," David Harriman asked reaching over to grab an apple from a nearby table. "It's likely just more of the bullshit advanced technology the ancients had up their sleeves."

"Maybe we should go out in one of the puddle jumpers and see what happens," Marcus said after a moment.

"Probably nothing," David Harriman said around a mouthful of fruit.

~ No Paradoxes ~

The jumper approached the gate. Behind them, the Carter held position.

"I was winning," Zack complained.

"Sure," David replied, not even moving his eyes off the displays.

Zack continued grumbling at a low level until Max told him to shutup.

"Hey, if we finish on time, is poker night still on?" David asked.

"Don't see why not," Maxwell said from the pilot's chair.

As the gate came within range a display screen on the jumper blinked into existence, accompanied by the audio cue the Alteran interface used. Lines spiderwebbed out from the center of the gate generating a model that hung in space. Lines of Alteran text scrolled in a smaller portion of the screen on the right side as the Jumper's computer automatically connected to the gate.

Marcus' eyes were focused solely on the display. Having spent several years as a student of Dr. Jackson he was fairly proficient in the ancient language, but there was still a good chunk of the text that scrolled by too fast for him to register its content completely.

What he did get was exciting enough though.

"Huh, the gate is configured for in system travel, which means this isn't the only gate," Marcus reported. "And the gate seems to have a cloak. Also there's an address that was downloaded from the gate's storage."

With his attention drawn to it, the display shifted, another overlay showing up next to the gate with the symbols.

Maxwell clicked his radio, "Carter, this is Jumper 3, over."

"Cater-Actual, go ahead Jumper 3, over."

"Gate is configured for in-system, only, address secured, over."

"Roger, Jumper 3, you have authorization to proceed, over."

"Wilco, Carter-Actual, Jumper 3 out."

Maxwell reached over to the DHD console, but noticed the keys were already active, shrugging he hit the activate key and passed autopilot for the approach to the jumper.

Outside the gate flashed as it connected.

Another tone from the interface as the overlay cleared.

~ No Paradoxes ~

A moment later they emerged on the other side. A much more spartan entry way than the atlantis control room greeted them. As the ship shed momentum coming to a halt in the middle of the room, lights around the room lit up in response to the ship signaling the computer.

"Carter-Actual, we've arrived in a large room there is some resemblance to atlantis' gateroom. Indicating Alteran design. Also there is a gate-shield. Over."

"Roger, Jumper 3, hourly checkin, over."

"Wilco, Carter-Actual, out."

A moment later the jumper started to ascend through an opening in the ceiling into a jumper bay like atlantis had.

Marcus still reading the display spoke up. "We'll have to wait a few minutes. The station is restoring internal atmosphere."

Several minutes later the hiss of the atmosphere pressurizing in the station outside started to filter into the jumper through the hull. David tapped a few keys, "It's almost normalized, though, the air is a bit thin. The CO2 scrubbers probably need maintenance."

As the team disembarked into the bay they noted the visual differences again. The station was old, older than Atlantis. The path was lit by rows of soft-white lights where the wall met the ceiling and smaller less bright ones where the floor met the wall along the path. At the end of a path was a stairwell which led them into the gateroom below.

Behind another door that looked airtight was a set of steps that lowered the level about a meter into a recessed control room, thick transparent crystal windows allowed the control room a view into the gateroom area. Along the opposite wall was another set of windows covered by an external metal shield.

At the other end of the room was another door leading into another part of the station. In the center of the room a column stretched from floor to ceiling, a set of displays and controls were connecting to the exposed wiring.

Marcus Pierce stepped into the room and after a brief examination of one of the panels, produced a crystal card which he slotted into an opening in the back of the control panel, a long wire connected the crystal to a USB port on his laptop. With a keypress he started the interface program which would build a standardized interface for the console downloading images and schematics to the laptop.

Across the room David was fiddling with another console, as he pulled himself out from under it after connecting his laptop he accidentally pressed one of the controls. With a mechanical hum the metal shield over the windows began to lower, light flared across the room before the crystal polarized.

Mitchell on the other hand had decided to go open the next door, revealing another hallway.

The team felt the station drift underfoot, the now unshuttered window revealing a massive flare buffeting the station.

"What was that," Mitchell called poking his head back into the room.

"We're on the sun," Sheppard's voice was soft as he stared at the nuclear furnace just outside.

"We're several kilometers above the solar north," Pierce said, his laptop having finished downloading and building the interface to show a model of the station and the solar system. "The station is drawing power directly from the sun."

"Harriman, Mitchell," Sheppard said as he got over the shock of where they were. "Check out the hallway."

In the hall there was another door which opened to a set of steps leading back up into the gateroom, further down was another door that opened into a large factory room, some of the equipment looked damaged from age, and would need repair.

But the real prize was sitting in a carrying case at the end of the assembly line.

The Mitchell grabbed their loot and went back to the control room.

"Is that what I think it is?" Sheppard asked.

"What do you think it is?" Mitchell replied.

"It is what you think it is," David helpfully chimed.

"ZPMs?" Sheppard said hopefully.

~ No Paradoxes ~

_**Post mission report:**_

"The station is going to need a lot of repair, and all the data on the construction process was wiped at some point so we'll have to reprogram the station on how to build and charge them," Pierce said.

"But we got three fully charged ones out of it," Mitchell said with a grin.

"There was also a lab where some research was being conducted on ZPM technology, even without the data having the lab equipment should help," David added. "Also now that we know it's here our jumpers should be able to dial in to the gate at the planet and head to the station from there."

"What sort of timeframe are we looking at before the station can be made operational?" General Heightmeyer asked.

"Decades, and that's being charitable," Sheppard said. "We'll need to move the station away from the sun to get at all the areas needing repair. With how old the station is, we'd need to practically rebuild it. It might be easier to just use it as a template and build our own anyway. Not to mention the missing information about the construction process."


	24. Chapter 24

Patchkirk walked through the newly transplanted trees, carefully chosen for their ability to survive without deep root structures, something that would be needed given the limited depth of the park.

Simeon had run ahead and had climbed one of them but struggling to reach the next branch up.

Off in the distance he could see a group of airmen using the path for their PT.

Nearing the tree Simeon was perched in he looked up.

"Catch me?" Simeon asked.

"Alright," James said bracing himself with his arms outstretched.

Simeon pushed off, both of them falling down but no worse for wear.

"You might be a bit too big for that," James said after catching his breath both from having the wind knocked out of him and from laughter.

"True," Simeon said after a moment, his face completely serious, and restarting James' laughter.

Some time later they neared a fork in the path, and down the right side, they could see one of the designated transport zones for quick movement through the city.

James groaned, as he spotted the escorts around the two Altair synthetics, "It seems work follows me everywhere," he muttered.

Simeon looked up at him, questioning.

"Just an old man's complaining, Simeon," James said with a smile.

Simeon turned to look at the new group at the slightly balding man's loud exclamation of happiness.

Getting down on a knee to so he was face to face with Simeon, James carefully explained about the group. "That's Harlan and Wallace, they're synthetic."

"Like me?" Simeon asked.

"Not quite," James said. "See their people had to figure out a way to survive after the air on their world went bad, so they made new bodies that didn't need to eat, and transferred what made them who they were to the new bodies." James tapped his temple.

"So they're robots?"

"More android than robot," James said. "But no less alive than us."

"Oh. Similar but different."

"Yup, and we're helping them rebuild where they live but there's only them left so we're also looking to see if we can figure out where the rest of them went."

"Cool"

James stood back up and approached the group.

"Peterson, Edwards," he nodded to the two escorts.

"Hi," Simeon greeted Harlan, full of questions and probably annoying the old android.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Jackson, **_Bridge - Nightshift_

The thing about the night shift, it's quiet, mostly anyway. So of course, there would be plenty of opportunity for a bright young fellow, wide awake on the night shift, and with nothing on the scanner, to kill some time exploring the galaxy virtually by way of watchtower.

Watchtower, of course was the chosen project name for the massive network of probes recently deployed throughout the galaxy.

If it had been produced by a certain twenty-first century tech giant it might have been named Google Galaxy instead.

Our enterprising young sensor technician, by the name of Lt. Gomer was in the middle of exploring a few famous sites from old mission files, and a few sites from relatively recent to their personal timeline when he noticed something. With the sensor probe passing in close proximity to Dakara he was the perfect position to get a high resolution scan.

The mountain on Dakara which should have held the Alteran genesis device was strangely lacking. Not only was it not there, but, the mountain on the sensors was without any sign of every playing host to the device.

A few taps on the keyboard and the next scan pulse from the network captured a much more detailed scan.

With a flick of the control he enabled an exploration mode that allowed him to virtually move around on the planet.

Lt. Gomer activated a holographic projector on the station and immersed himself in the scenery. As he approached the spot that should have lead to a wall inscribed with an alteran puzzle behind which should have been the Dakara control center; he took note of the differences, where the puzzle should have been was a small fountain, behind which the sensors detected only a simple maintenance chamber.

Lt. Gomer carefully pressed the save button and copied the recording into a report which he forwarded up to his CO.

~ No Paradoxes ~

_**Aldores, Year Five**_

Adrian Maas gave his Abuela a hug, running out the door and down the hall and past the transporter pad, he wanted to get there early today, because he was supposed to move up a grade. He'd tried asking to use the transporter pad once, a few weeks ago, but with Abuela's flat only a short walk away from the academy tower, priority went to other students.

The transport booths spread throughout the city were another thing that reminded him how different it was living on the city ship. As an orphan in a big city back on earth, going places hadn't been the easiest but he'd had his ways, until Abuela caught him resting on her porch one day and took him in. He'd panicked but she managed to talk him down, until he explained he'd run away from the foster home.

Abuela was the one who pushed for him to keep learning. When the world governments couldn't keep the stargate a secret any longer, Abuela was finally allowed to tell him what her real job was at area 51, and he thought she couldn't get any more cool before she said anything. It explained a lot about how she was able to push the custody papers through so quickly.

"Simeon," Adrian called, his mouth widening into a large grin as he spotted the younger boy. "How's my hermanito doing today?"

"Hi, Adric," Simeon called back with a grin. "They said they'd move me up to the same class as you."

"That's great, little man."

Simeon gave a small frown of annoyance at the term of endearment but let it pass quickly. "What subject did they have us in first?"

"Something about arts, writing, or something."

The two of them entered the main lobby and quickly covered the distance to the stairwell that would take them up to the floor their grade level was on.

Their floor was a series of rooms of varying size depending on the purpose, the closest door led to a basketball court that extended into the floor below, space requirements meant they'd share some of their gym time with the floor and grade below them, something that wouldn't become noticeable until much later once the number of kids needed those services expanded.

Next to that was a lecture hall with theatre style seating, across from that was a cafeteria for lunch or snacks throughout the day, further in smaller rooms dominated the rest of the floor, lessons were provided by a combination of a live teacher and a virtual teaching assistant program which monitored progress on an individual level and could provide queued assignments.

In the mornings though, they started off in the cafeteria, the amount of time spent there was up to the student but for those who were unable to get breakfast at home, food synthesizers along the wall could provide something quick, and if they were there early enough the kitchen would provide something hot.

Basic attendance was taken by sensors as they passed the doors into the hall, so there wasn't really a need for a homeroom. So the time spent in the cafeteria was mainly to allow students time to get to know each other.

Simeon frowned again spotting a group of new faces on one side of the room. They'd obviously been there for a while as they already had trays of food. He could see the division between them and the rest of the people there by the row of empty chairs around their chosen corner. But couldn't really see a reason for it besides the main one of them being new.

"I see it," Adrian commented after Simeon looked at him.

"Gonna do something about it?"

Adrian raised an eyebrow.

"Right, this is you. So, what's the plan?"

Adrian smiled, "Hermanito, you and I are going to go say hello."

Adrian had been the first one to step in and welcome the other boy back when he'd first arrived. He'd been the one to stand up for him to the other earth-born kids using his physical size and quick wit to counter them. Sometimes, he only did so long enough for Simeon to get back on his feet. But, Simeon was a quick learner, and when it was necessary he gave as good as he got.

Not that the adults were happy about the situation, but cooler minds prevailed, they would step in, if needed, and they had with some of the other flash-grown, when the kid just didn't know how to stand up for himself or if they retaliated to strongly.

Like Adrian, some of the other older kids saw what was going on and would step in before the adults needed to. Pulling the groups apart, reprimanding, teaching, and mentoring as needed.

Adrian remembered one of the arguments.

_"But he's a flash-grown!" the other boy said heatedly._

_"So, and I'm an orphan," Adrian replied. "You going to call me a monstruo—a freak too just because I don't know who my parents are? How about we all start messing with you, cause your parents are mormon, eh chico?"_

_"That's different."_

_"Not so much, so what if he grew in a tube, so what chico. He's still human, comprende?"_

_The other boy lowered his head in defeat._

_"That goes for everyone," Adrian said a bit louder, "I claim him as my hermanito__—__my little brother, got it?"_

As the first to cross the line they could feel others watching them, Adrian nodded to Simeon and the two split for different ends of the group.

Adrian was a picture of calm, but they couldn't see the sweat on his palms the pounding of his heart in his chest, the subtle shake in his legs.

"Hi, mind if I sit here?" he asked pointing to an empty seat.

A tense moment of silence his world waiting on a word, before one of the girls in the group stood and smiled, "I'm Llera, please, you're welcome to join us."

Sound came back to the world, as Adrian grinned taking a seat with a smile returning the favor of giving his name. Further down the table, he could see Simeon introducing himself as the other boy took a seat.


	25. Chapter 25

Galaxies are huge, keeping tabs on everything in even just one quadrant is a tough job. Imagine trying to keep track of everything on earth with just satellite coverage. Setting aside the lack of consistent coverage, all of those high resolution images take a lot of storage, and most of it will be devoid of anything worthwhile. Now multiply that by however many planets can fit into 100,000 square lightyears.

It's not an instant get out of ambushes free card. Even with the help of a dedicated virtual intelligence, running on an asgard system core, it is a monumental undertaking. With the help of their Virtual Intelligence a large chunk of the information can be discarded, having little more importance than the amount of stellar matter spread over several sectors of space.

The VI's work isn't done just yet, it will continue to prove itself worth more than the hardware it runs on, the remaining data, even reduced down to less than ten percent is still massive. And that is still on the small side compared to the potential workload.

The sensor platforms had been given a large suite of tools and instruments, from cameras which recorded well over the range of the mark one eyeball—to the jokingly named SPiDAR (Subspace Detection And Ranging) and anything else they could throw in between. The Asgard inspired computer on each platform controlled the first report on how much of the information was initially relevant. Planets and ships were priority, stellar phenomena came next.

Within the first few months of operation, processing was swamped, as it became apparent that there were a lot of space faring civilizations in a galaxy, or rather a lot of ships capable of traveling faster than light. Secondary to that was keeping track of all of this traffic. Hyperspace even though theoretically separate from normal space was still affected by gravity to some extent as evident by the effects stars had on stargate wormholes, creating areas of space where a ship would be slightly faster following a specific trajectory than if they just forced their path straight from point A to B.

Just because a ship's trajectory could be drawn in a straight line towards one planet or another didn't necessarily indicate that was their destination. Otherwise they'd be alerted every time a ship on the other side of the galaxy was moving on a course that pointed vaguely in their general direction. Not that there wasn't a log of such things.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Aldores,** _Control Tower_

Captain Donovan suppressed his amusement as he observed Miss Mercer's class on the other side of the transparent trinium window set into the north wall of the control room. From the looks of things the teacher was giving the group one last warning before they would enter the room.

"Remember class, the control room isn't a play room, we're here as guests, so don't touch," Miss Mercer said, as the door slid open behind her.

"Yes, Miss Mercer."

Miss Mercer turned to see who had come in and gave Donovan a brief smile before turning back to the group. "Now, Capt. Donovan has graciously volunteered to show us around, do you have any questions for the captain?"

Donovan started with one of the smaller boys in the front named James Theissen.

James asked, "Do you fly the city?"

Donovan chuckled. "Sadly not, captain is my rank not my job description."

Some of the kids gave 'awws' of disappointment.

"Actually, I'm in charge of communications," Donovan said. "But I have also been cross-trained to the other stations on the bridge."

"You in the back," Cpt. Donovan pointed to Simeon out of the few students who'd raised there hands.

"Simeon Spencer," Simeon supplied.

"Ted's boy?" Donovan asked, Simeon blushed and nodded. "What's your question."

"Do you Galaxy dive?" Simeon

"I'm not sure what you mean, is that a new sport?" Donovan asked.

The boy next to Simeon, raised his hand and spoke up, "Kris Hoerst, sir. Some scientists who were really into Star Trek setup what they're calling a holodeck on the southwest pier, they've got a really accurate simulation of the milky way galaxy, and an indoor wind tunnel setup."

"They also have an awesome laser tag setup using the same simulation," another boy said.

"Ah, I see now, galaxy diving," Donovan said, before the group could devolve into anecdotes. "Well, obviously given my confusion on the subject I haven't been. But it sounds like something worth doing."

Donovan answered a few more questions from the class and then called a temporary halt to the impromptu question and answer session.

"Alright, who's ready to see the control room?" he asked.

~ No Paradoxes ~

The class was nearing the end of the tour when one of the screens flashed in warning.

After a quick glance at the screen Donovan ushered them out of the room, "Looks like we'll have to cut the end a little short today class, since my duty today doesn't have me at my usual station I'll be following you out, just head down the hallway to the conference room. I can answer any remaining questions you have."

Behind him the control room crew shifted positions as the alarm at the long range sensors station activated.

~ No Paradoxes ~

General Patchkirk arrived in the coalescing golden shimmer of one of the modified transporter beams. He frowned at the change in the usual musical chime. "Lt. Anders report."

"At 0945, long range sensors detected three contacts on approach in hyperspace, on review of records, course confirmed at 0950 with a ninety-seven percent accuracy on a heading for Edora, current speed of the vessel should have them on our doorstep in just fourteen days."

"How far out are they?" the general asked.

Melissa Anders tapped a few keys on the console changing the display before replying, "Five to six light years' sir, they'll come in at an angle from the ecliptic."

"They're not travelling very fast," the general said. "Where'd they come from?"

The display changed again, "Watchtower indicates they left this planet, approximately four days ago. The previous alert was buried under all of the other reports from when we started calibrating the system, it came back up because it tripped the three day alert."

"Anything on their point of origin?" Patchkirk asked.

"Given their speed and estimated operational range, it's likely that the contact left from that system. We should have a better idea of what we're facing in about four hours when our sensor platform repositions for higher definition imaging of the planet."

"Can we get a better picture of what's coming at us?"

"There's too much distortion from their drive to get a clear image of what we're facing at this time, once the platform repositions we should be able to better calibrate the sensors."

~ No Paradoxes ~

"You've found a ZPM factory?" Patchkirk said. "Amelia, I don't care if it takes a century to completely repair, it's quite the find."

"That's right, sir, and even though the system is off the beaten path. I'm uncomfortable leaving it unsupervised now that I know it exists." Amelia said.

"I understand, stay there and secure the system, Amelia." Patchkirk said. "We'll be fine with David's ship."

"Isn't he still out trying to get the scanners working on that minefield?" Amelia asked.

"I called him before you, and he can have that ship back home in 3 hours, Amelia. In the meantime, though, the dry-dock in the field has been re-tasked from reeling in asteroids for station construction, to building some LaGrange point defenses, and a few other surprises." Patchkirk replied.

"I'll let you know if we need you once the scans give us a more conclusive image of what we're facing." Patchkirk said.

"Understood, sir. I'll have Max and his team bring you the ZPMs we picked up." Amelia said.

"I'll be expecting them, Patchkirk out." General Patchkirk pressed the button to end the call leaning back in his chair, some of the tension had faded from his expression at the prospect of the boost the ZPMs would provide to their defense.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Aldores**, _12th Tower, 3rd Pier - Spencer quarters._

"We've discovered six more cases of tampering," Lt. Spencer said, groaning as he laid back on the bed.

Spencer's wife, Sarah pushed him so he was on his stomach reaching over to start massaging the knotted muscles in his back.

"Left shoulder, higher," Theodore prompted.

"How are they coping?" Sarah asked.

"Well enough," Theodore replied. "Nothing that raises and serious red flags so far. Still, it's a major concern."

Sarah hummed in reply.

"Simeon staying the weekend with Adrian?" Theodore asked.

"That's the plan," Sarah confirmed.

"Good," Theodore said, as he flipped over underneath her and pulled her closer.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**Altair,** _Meeting Room._

"So, the atmospheric regenerator is ready?" Harlan asked excitedly.

"Not quite," R-McKay-One replied. "We still need one of our ships to swing by and get detailed scans of the atmosphere. We don't want the Goa'uld to know we've fixed anything."

R-McKay-Two spoke up, "It'll still take several years to reach the point where we can go outside without EVA suits."

"Still, this is joyous news," Harlan said, clapping his hands together. "Comtraya!"

The 'thunk' of Wallace's head repeatedly making contact with the surface of the table was heard in the silence left by Harlan's exclamation as he left the room.

"Is he going to be alright?" R-Zelenka-Four asked.

R-McKay-Two looked confused for a moment before noticing Wallace. "I'm sure he'll be fine."


	26. Chapter 26

_**Aldores,** 4th Pier - Slipway 7_

"Mr. McPherson," General Patchkirk said walking into the room, "would you care to explain?"

The general was staring at the mostly completed hull of what had been billed as the answer to the Tel'tak, and a replacement for puddle jumper use on extended missions.

Alex McPherson pushed the crawler he was lying on out from under the beams of Trinium-Naquadah-Carbon alloy which formed the skeleton of a craft that bore a striking resemblance to a certain ship from a particular popular science fiction program. That frame rested a series of small anti-grav pods spread out evenly along the bottom.

"Ah, General, I didn't hear you come in," Alex said.

The general gave him a look.

"Heh, as I'm sure you can tell, we've heavily based our project off the Delta Flyer," Alex McPherson said. "I'm sure you recall the project brief, which specified a counter vessel to the tel'tak and enough firepower to provide an answer to the Alkesh."

General Patchkirk nodded, "I recall reading that from the report. What I don't recall however is approving a design so closely matching that from existing fiction."

"It was in there, sir, and aside from the obvious differences in coloration, this ship is not and will not be the Delta Flyer," Alex replied with a confused expression. "I distinctly recall making sure of it before starting. Should have been briefly described under the section regarding experimental hull geometries."

Patchkirk narrowed his eyes before replying, "that section was marked as theoretical work Mr. McPherson."

Nothing was said for a few moments before the general sighed, "Very well, you've already gotten this far, it'd be a waste of time to scrap the project. Show me the final design."

"While losing the ability to deploy through a stargate like the puddle jumper, we believe we've managed to negate that with a hyper-drive capable of sufficient velocity," Alex babbled as he reached for a nearby tablet and quickly tapped his fingers on the screen to bring up the final render. As heavily as the Delta had influenced the design, the puddle jumper had just as much if not more. The window on the front had a segmented crystalline design around the top and bottom edge.

The drive pods from the puddle jumper had been scaled up to fit into the fins where the 'nacelles' would have been, being freed from the size constraint of the stargate, the drive had no need to retract, so it was armored.

Following standing orders, the ship had been designed with an array of weapons covering all angles of approach on a standardized hardpoint mounts that allowed them to swap them out quickly as needed.

The smooth curves of the federation craft had been lost in the translation replaced by the hard lines and crystalline angles the ancients had been fond of in their designs. The overall effect linked just enough with that of the Tel'tak, while the shape underneath remained recognizably that of the Delta if you knew to look for it.

"I'm sure you can see how very quickly your project could be modified to look like the original inspiration," Patchkirk said after spending fifteen minutes reviewing the design. "Let's make sure that doesn't happen."

McPherson's head imitated a bobble head as he gave a silly grin and nodded.

"Also, since you've got all the parts fabricated, let's see if you can't get it flight ready in the next fourteen days," Patchkirk said renewing McPherson's panicked expression, as he headed out the door.

"Nothing slips by me," Patchkirk whispered with a smirk.

~ No Paradoxes ~

_**Aldores** 5th pier - lab 2._

"No," Radomil Zalenka said, "absolutely not. I'm not hearing you suggest these, these, things!"

"But Rad," Danek Filipek whined.

Radomil slipped into Czech for a few moments before he cooled off enough to talk again.

"It's bad enough you went and built yourself one of those things," Zalenka said. "Dan, I've been your friend since školka. You asked why, remind me what the Jaffa headgear looks like?"

"Stylized Animal..." Danek started but was interrupted as an alarm sounded.

_**"Please secure all lab equipment, stations, and experiments, lift off is scheduled at fourteen hundred hours."**_

Radomil looked up and cursed, "Help me secure the lab, we'll finish this discussion later."

Danek nodded and went to work at one of the consoles. While loss of power during lift-off or battle wasn't a likely event, it was still something they didn't want to affect their work and possibly upset a delicate experiment. If it came down to a space battle, they had enough worries with enemy fire that a delicate experiment reacting badly to power loss wasn't a worry they wanted.

~ No Paradoxes ~

**_Aldores_,** _Central Tower_

"Contact on scanner, sir," Airman Jane Rivers reported.

"I don't know how you convinced them to let you create a female version of yourself," Emily said from the station next to Airman Rivers.

"Ladies," Patchkirk interrupted. "Not the time."

Airman Anderson gave a sheepish look.

"Rivers do we have a visual?" Patchkirk said.

"The distortion is beginning to clear; long range sensors should have a more detailed rendering of the contact in a few minutes," Jane said.

The fuzzy image of three indistinct blobs appeared on the main viewscreen.

The general tapped a button on his tablet and waited for the other end of the line to pick up. "Mr. McPherson, is your flyer ready?" he said.

"It'll be a bumpy ride, sir. But everything vital is installed," Alex said.

"Have you picked your pilot?"

There was a pause on the other end before Alex responded, "Before I tell you, is Max Sheppard in system?"

"He's on The Carter with General Heightmeyer light years away from us."

Alex gave a sigh of relief. "Excellent, If I may make a suggestion, keep him and his team there where his genetic propensity for danger stays far away from my baby."

"I'll take that into consideration, Mr. McPherson. Now, if you would, your pilot," General Patchkirk said.

"My pilot? Ah yes, pilot, well that would be Kristoff, I mean Kris Novak."

"The one who's been filing proposals about becoming the technology distributor of the galaxy?" Patchkirk said. "I wasn't aware he had a pilot's licence."

"He got it a few years ago, sir. Also, we've had him working with us on the controls since the project start," Alex said.

"Alright, you've convinced me," Patchkirk replied, "we'll be in orbit in two hours let me know when you're ready to launch."

~ No Paradoxes ~

_**The Carter,**__ \- Starboard Lounge_

"I should be there," Maxwell Sheppard complained.

"Ah hell there he goes again," Captain Pierce said.

"It calls to me, dammit, I should be flying that pretty little vessel on her maiden voyage," Colonel Sheppard continued, ignoring the looks.

"Is it just me or are the rest of you creeped out by his word choice as well," Zack Mitchell said.

"Not just you," David Harriman said.

"Sheppard get a hold of yourself man," Captain Pierce said. "You're not Captain Kirk, and Alex's Flyer isn't a fine woman, and god help you if you try to be Kirk while we're around."

"Aww, you guys never let me have any fun," Max complained.

"Right, fun. You keep using that word, we don't think it means what you think it means," Zack said badly imitating the accent.

~ No Paradoxes ~

_**The Carter,**__ \- Captain's Ready room_

"Any luck recovering the database?" General Amelia Heightmeyer said.

"If it was still intact," Lt. Alexandria Keller said. "Sadly it looks like something compromised the shielding in that section of the station and melted the distributed data nodes."

"Is there any danger to our people on the station?" Amelia asked.

"We've repaired the faulty shield modules as best we can by replacing worn out components with parts that were in storage on the station, so our people aren't in any danger at the moment. But, the station is extremely old, possibly even among one of the first installations for stellar lifting the alterans built," Lt. Keller said.

"So, it won't stay that way," Amelia said.

"We're scanning and cataloguing everything, anything we can recover, and the stuff that isn't bolted down, is being sent through the stargate for archiving here," Lt. Keller said.

"So basically we're looting the place," Heightmeyer said.

"As much as I hate to agree, yes," Lt. Keller replied. "Luckily there were enough spare parts for the shield generators that we were able to bring back all the components required to assemble a working one; so, we should be able to scan them into the core and reproduce them on our own with the asgard replicating tech."

"I'll be happy with what wins we can get from this situation. And the Zero Point Module factory?" Heightmeyer said.

"We're in the process of replicating the equipment in one of the labs here, but, age has not been kind and without the intact firmware required to run the machinery that we have recovered, it's still a huge leg up in figuring out how to make them, but we don't have all the pieces yet," Keller said.

~ No Paradoxes ~

_**The O'Neill,**__ \- Bridge, Altair Orbit_

Brig. Gen. Alexander Reed straightened his uniform and walked through the door to the bridge of the O'Neill.

Now that the Aldores was inhabited, and General Patchkirk had transferred his quarters and office to the city. That left _The O'Neill_ without a commanding officer, and according to the good General he was due for a promotion.

Not that he agreed much of course, he'd liked the action of being a team leader but he was getting older and if he had to be a member of the chair force, he would do so from a chair that he could move around the galaxy at need. Which he supposed made it so he wasn't actually a member of the chair force just yet, he grinned.

"General," Maj. Nathaniel Donovan said.

"Nate," Reed said.

"The chair is yours," Donovan said with a smirk.

The engineering teams had spent a great deal of time over the past few months working on the ship, it would be called the captain's chair, if the navy had their way with naming things, and crewed by a person of the actual rank of captain. The navy hadn't been happy when they found out the air force had spaceships. Not that they could do much about it at that point, besides he prefered general over admiral.

Anyway, the chair it wasn't the prettiest most comfortable chair he'd ever seen, but everyone who'd sat in it said looks were deceiving. The egghead types had integrated as much as they could from the alteran control chair technology into it.

He sat down and felt the chair adjust around him, sensor contacts throughout the chair adjusting to create the best connection they could. He could feel the ship responding to his thoughts.

"Donovan, please advise the crew to prepare for take off."


End file.
